Food Chains, Food Webs, and Words-Oh My!

Food Chains, Food Webs, and Words-Oh My!

July 13, 2013

I needed to write my blog post tonight, but I just wasn’t quite there yet. So, I did what I usually do when I need an idea-I went for a walk in the woods near my house.

Like many writers, I have a connection with the outdoors. I think it’s a chlorophyll thing, because I have always loved plants and trees. They soothe and refresh me. As I walked tonight I thought about plants and trees, energy and words. As an environmental educator and writer, I love making that connection between nature and creativity.

For just a moment, think about the concept of food chains and food webs. (Stay with me here.) In a food web, green plants are the producers. Pulling energy from the sun, they make food using photosynthesis. Next come the consumers. Small creatures eat the plants, gaining energy to grow and thrive. Larger animals eat them, and so on. The energy gets passed along in and through this intricate system, changing each living thing in some way.

Now, here comes the fun part! What if we substitute words for that plant energy? Words are a writer’s energy. We weave them into sentences, paragraphs and stories to be read, or consumed. As these words pass along and through the web of readers, our hope is that those readers will be energized–energized to imagine, to learn, or to dream. Our readers are affected by what we write, just as the creatures in the food web are transformed by what they consume.

What power our words can have!