How to play Food Web Builder
Food Web Builder is a free KS3 biology game about food webs. A food web shows what eats what in one place, such as a meadow or a hedge. You build one link at a time. Then you pull species out and watch what happens to the rest.
The first six questions build the web. Each one shows a living thing on the left. Tap it, then tap the animal that eats it. In this game, the arrow points from the food to the animal that eats it. Every right link joins the web on screen, so you can see it grow. In a normal round, the first three links start from a plant.
The last four questions show the whole web as a list of links. Tap Remove to take one species out. Then pick the animal that loses all of its food first. The answer panel lists every animal that runs out of food, in order.
Each right answer scores 10 points, and a 30-second timer runs on each question. The practice switch turns the timer off. Tick the harder start and all six links start from animals, which is trickier. On a keyboard, press 1 to 4 to answer and Enter to go on. The best score for each start is saved on this device.
The science behind food webs
The living things in an ecosystem depend on each other. Scientists call this interdependence. An ecosystem is a place, like a pond or a wood, together with everything that lives there. Plants make their own food. Animals get theirs by eating plants or other animals.
A food chain follows one line of eating, such as clover to caterpillar to ground beetle. Real animals often eat more than one thing, and more than one animal may eat them. When you join all the food chains in a place together, you get a food web.
A food web helps you predict what happens when something changes. If one species disappears, the animals that eat it lose some of their food. An animal with other foods can switch to them. An animal that ate only the missing species runs out of food. Then the animals that ate it lose food too, and so on up the web. That chain of effects is what the removal questions test.
The web in this game is a model. It uses a small set of plants and animals from a British meadow and hedgerow. A real habitat has many more species and many more links. The model keeps things simple, so you can follow each effect by eye.
Food webs sit in the relationships in an ecosystem part of the KS3 National Curriculum for science. That part also covers insect-pollinated crops, and why insect pollination of plants matters for the food people eat. It also asks how living things affect their surroundings and are affected by them, including the build-up of poisons over time.
Tips for building food webs
- Read each arrow as "is eaten by". Clover → Caterpillar means the caterpillar eats the clover.
- Plants never sit at the end of an arrow in this web. They make their own food.
- In a removal question, first find every animal that eats the missing species.
- Then check each of those animals. Does it have another food left in the web? If it does, it survives.
- In this web, the animal at the top eats more than one thing. It is never the first to lose all its food.
In a removal question, the wrong options have no direct link to the missing species. If you pick one, look back at the list and trace the arrows.
Use this in the classroom
Food Web Builder suits Years 7 to 9 when you teach relationships in an ecosystem. A round takes about five minutes, so it works as a starter or a plenary.
Play the first six questions on the board and ask the class to draw the web as it grows. Before the removal questions, ask students to predict. Which species would hurt the web most if it vanished? Then test their ideas with the game. The answer panel shows the full knock-on list, which gives you a good talking point.
As an extension, ask Year 9 students to add a new species to their drawing, with two links in and one link out. Then ask how that one change alters the removal answers. It shows why animals with more than one food source cope better when something changes.
Students can switch off the timer with the practice switch, and there is nothing to sign up for. Our page for teachers has more ideas you can use in lessons.
Similar games
Every food web starts with plants, and Photosynthesis Lab shows how they make their food. Respiration Equations follows what cells do with it. For more KS3 practice, try Force Sort in physics or Atom Detective in chemistry. The biology games page lists the rest.
Questions people ask
Here are questions students and teachers ask about food webs at KS3.
What is the difference between a food chain and a food web?
A food chain shows one line of feeding, from a plant to the animals that eat it in turn. A food web joins many food chains from the same place together. It shows that most animals eat more than one thing and are eaten by more than one thing.
What happens to a food web if one species is removed?
The animals that ate that species lose some of their food. Those with other foods can manage. Any animal that ate only the missing species runs out of food. The animals that ate that animal are then affected, so one change can spread through the web.
Which way do the arrows go in a food web?
In this game, each arrow points from the food to the animal that eats it. So Grass → Grasshopper means the grasshopper eats the grass. Read each arrow as "is eaten by".
Is Food Web Builder on the KS3 science curriculum?
Yes. Food webs are in the relationships in an ecosystem part of the KS3 National Curriculum for science. The game suits students in Years 7 to 9, and there are no numbers to work out.