Food Web Frenzy

On Monday we got to know all of our fellow campers and their favorite foods/ food groups as we began to weave our way through food webs. We learned who eats whom in our local and river ecosystems and got to experience it first hand down in the river at Critter Crawl. 

On Tuesday we learned all about the tip top tier of the food web pyramid. We talked about all the biggest animals that are the apex predators in Colorado and around the world.  Then we narrowed our vision down to just those predatory birds, raptors. Our special guest, Nature’s Educators, swooped in at the end of the day to share all about raptors and show us a White Tail Hawk, an American Kestrel, a Screech Owl, and a Turkey vulture. 

On Wednesday we wove our way down further into food webs and took a look deep inside the digestion of a predator by dissecting owl pellets. After learning about owls on Tuesday with Nature’s Educators we were able to dissect a byproduct of an owls meal and piece the puzzle together of what they eat in a typical day. Then we washed our hands and thoroughly enjoyed our own lunches without any extra digestive steps.

On Thursday we had a hot field day filled with predator and prey games, a playground animal track and scat game, and many squirrel themed games to learn about our lower level consumers that make up many of the animals we are most familiar with. Then we looked for our favorite decomposers all together when we gathered so many crawdads at Critter Crawl all together. 

On the last day of camp we ended by talking about the final level of the food chain, the decomposers. We dissected mushrooms, compost, and explored how our creepy crawlies can help any ecosystem out by breaking down all the unwanted materials. At Critter Crawl we talked about Crusher the Crawdad’s important job in the riverbed. At graduation we thanked everyone for a great week and talked about where each camper might fall on the food chain pyramid.