Ecology Unit Overview

Katie Iverson

Biodiversity is the big idea I want students to learn in the Ecology unit I teach. The world we live in is a beautiful and fascinating place. So much emphasis is put on humans being the most important living thing on earth, that we forget about all of the other living things that we rely on to sustain our lives. With almost 2 million known species it can be difficult to grasp how all living things are connected to one another. This unit will be taught to 8th grade students towards the end of the school year. Coming into this unit they will have a strong understanding of what classifies something as a living thing. I want students to understand how living things interact with each other and change as their resources change. They will also look at how natural and human processes affect the environment and suggest possible solutions to problems that threaten biodiversity. Students will start this unit by developing an understanding of ecosystems. They will have to find and describe an ecosystem in their own backyard or somewhere near to where they live. I want to challenge them to re-see something that they may pass by every day, looking for living things that rely on each other for survival. Instead of seeing just another tree, they see that the tree is home to small animals, insects and possibly even living things too small to see. The tree provided a habitat for everything living in it and in return those living things provide the tree with what it needs to live and grow. When they return to class with their ecosystem descriptions, they will report their findings to the class. Even in our small community, they should find a variety of ecosystems. Working in small groups I will have them compare and contrast their ecosystems. With the list of similarities they generate we will come up with a general description of the biome that we live in. Just within the biome that we live in they will find a variety of living things and ecosystems, but there are other biomes on earth. Students working in small groups will then choose a biome in another part of the world to compare to our own. I want students to understand that there is an incredible variety of living things and their habitats. The next part of this unit will show students how connected all living things are to each other. Balance is a critical part of biodiversity; everything has a special niche connects it to its habitat. To learn about food webs, students will participate in a role-play. Students will be divided into three groups: forest ecosystem, field ecosystem and pond ecosystem. These are all ecosystems that are part of our biome. Each student will be assigned to play the part of an organism that would be found in their groups ecosystem. Before beginning the role -play students will gather background information about the animal they represent. I will give them a few questions to answer from the perspective of their organism. What is your ideal habitat? Where do you get your energy? Are you a producer, herbivore, carnivore or omnivore or decomposer?

What are some potential treats to your survival? How do you protect yourself from those treats?

Students will have to introduce their organism to the class. Each ecosystem group will be given several long piece yarns. The yarn will be color coded: the forest will have green yarn, the field will have red yarn and the pond will have blue yarn. We will start with something in the middle of the room to represent the ultimate source of energy, the sun. All of the producers will tie their yarn to the sun to show where they get their energy from. Then organisms that eat the producers will tie their yarn to the yarn of the producers that they eat. And then the next level of organisms will tie their yarn to the yarn of organisms that they eat and this will continue until all students are tied to their food source. The purpose of color coding the yarn is so that students can see that not only do they rely on living things in their ecosystem, but they also rely on other ecosystems. They will see this because each color will connect with other colors somewhere in the web. Now that students are all connected to each other, I will present them with different scenarios. Some of these will be overpopulation, unregulated hunting, loss of habitat and pollution. With each scenario, the students affected will have to drop their piece of yarn to symbolize a break in the food web. I want students to see that if something happens to one organism it can affect many others because they are all connected. In the final part of this unit students will look at how natural and human processes affect the environment and suggest possible solutions to problems that threaten biodiversity. Terrible events, caused by nature or human, can threaten biodiversity. I will start by sharing a story about a current event that has threatened biodiversity, such as the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill. As a class will discuss how this affected biodiversity and what can be done to restore biodiversity. Then students will choose an incident of their own to research and write a newspaper article about. Formative assessment will take place on a daily basis through discussions, questioning and written reflections. I will assess their understanding of ecosystems and biomes when they compare and contrast biomes. In the role-play they will have to explain their understanding of their organisms niche and connection to other organisms. The newspaper article will be the summative assessment. It will show me that they can apply the concepts they learned in the unit to address real world situations. It will be challenging to create opportunities for students to undergo an aesthetic experience. I want them to have an emotional connection with the content, so I will try to have elements of sublime. Throughout the unit I will have to make that what I teach fosters a greater understanding of the big idea. My goal is to change how they see living things and create an appreciation or even an awe of biodiversity.