Help students to use their ruler and protractor to draw an equilateral triangle, which is one that has all sides and angles equal. The triangle should have 5-inch sides. Instruct students to draw parallel horizontal lines within the triangle to form four sections. Give the title of each section (e.g., producers, primary consumers, etc.), and ask students to write examples of each group within its corresponding section in the triangle.
Repeat the task of creating an equilateral triangle to represent the energy pyramid, only this time ask students to give it 6-inch sides. Instruct students to divide the triangle in four sections with parallel horizontal lines, but this time, instead of writing examples of each group's members, students must draw plants and animals. If space is not sufficient within the triangle, they can use the blank space outside the shape that is next to the corresponding section.
Instead of drawing a triangular shape, you can also construct a step pyramid, resembling the Mayan pyramids found in Mexico. Divide the class into four teams. Each team will be responsible for each of the energy pyramids groups. Instruct the producers group to make a 10-by-3-inch rectangle and the primary consumers team to form a 7-by-3-inch rectangle. Of the remaining two teams, one must draw a 5-by-3-inch rectangle, and the other should draw a 3-by-30-inch rectangle. Teams must draw organisms corresponding to their own trophic level and glue their rectangle on a large sheet, along with the rectangles of the other teams, to form a step pyramid.
Through this activity, students can understand the amount of energy transferred between the pyramid's trophic levels. Ask students to draw a pyramid as in Section 1. Instruct them to write only the title of each group and give a fictional amount of energy for the producers, such as 350 Kcal (kilo-calories, the metric unit of energy). Explain that only 10 percent of the total amount of energy makes its way to the next trophic level and ask students to do the multiplication by 0.1 to find how many of those 350 Kcal reach the primary consumer level. Write that number on the corresponding section of the pyramid, and then continue with the other levels of consumers.