Habitats and food chains
Biology · Key Stage 1 · The School
Suited to the place
A polar bear has thick fat and white fur; a camel stores fat in a hump and closes its nostrils against sand. Each animal has features that suit its habitat — that is ADAPTATION. Swap them over and neither survives, which tells you the features are not decoration, they are the reason the animal lives there.
Arrows show where energy goes
Grass → rabbit → fox. The arrow means "is eaten by", and it points the way the ENERGY travels. Drawing the arrows backwards is the classic error. Every chain starts with a producer (a plant, making food from light); everything after it is a consumer.
Remove one link
Take away the rabbits and the foxes have less to eat, so fox numbers fall; the grass grows thicker. Take away the grass and everything above it collapses. Food chains show why one change ripples through a habitat — and why protecting a habitat means protecting the whole chain, not one favourite animal.
Grass → rabbit → fox. Now take the rabbits away. The foxes lose their food and their numbers fall or they move. The grass, with nothing eating it, grows long and thick. Now instead take the FOXES away: rabbit numbers rise sharply, and they eat the grass down to bare soil, and then they run short too. Removing either link changes both of the others — the chain works in both directions.