Students complete the “Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems” probe.
Students watch a video of meerkats working together.
Students complete the “Oh Deer! Simulation” to explore the relationship between population size and resource availability.
Students complete the “Oh Deer! Simulation” to explore the relationship between population size and resource availability.
Students watch a Competition and Limiting Factors video and complete a writing reflection.
Students read the National Geographic text to describe patterns of interactions across ecosystems, and to convince a poacher not to kill lions.
Students read the National Geographic text to describe patterns of interactions across ecosystems, and to convince a poacher not to kill lions.
Students read the National Geographic text to describe patterns of interactions across ecosystems, and to convince a poacher not to kill lions.
Students revisit the patch of grass to explain why it may not be considered a healthy ecosystem and take the Concept 3 assessment.
Students watch Blue World TV Webisodes to identify examples of mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism.
In this Concept, students begin with the phenomenon of meerkats exhibiting some puzzling behaviors. Students use simulations to explore how resource availability affects population size, and how organisms can interact to get the matter and energy they need to survive. They then apply what they have learned to the local example of Forest Park and a global example of an African savanna.
After observing the different kinds of interactions within an ecosystem, and how organisms compete with each other for abiotic and biotic resources, students will be prepared to consider how ecosystems may be disrupted, what this does to the organisms within that ecosystem, and what we can do to restore balance in a disrupted ecosystem.