Curated OER
Trophic Relationships, Cycling of Chemicals, Human Impact on Ecosystems and Conservation
Students explore how the energy flow through a system is related to trophic levels. They investigate how organisms affect the cycling of elements and water through the biosphere. Students participate in lab activities to observe ways...
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Which One Matters?
Students study the balance necessary to maintain ecosystems and how changing that balance can impact the ecosystem. They identify and discuss the need for balance in any ecosystem and discuss how greenhouse gases impact ecosystems.
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"Using Cichlids To Demonstrate the Effects of Human Activity On Ecosystems"
Young scholars explore the freshwater ecosystem of Africa's Lake Victoria by creating a freshwater aquarium. They investigate factors affecting the aquarium's ecosystem and conduct lab activities.
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Nature and Fintess Trail
Students investigate how humans impact the environment and compile an organism database into an e-book field guide. They name muscle groups and develop specific exercises to strengthen these groups. Students utilize technology for data...
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The Captain And Lake Wilmar
Tenth graders examine the ecosystem of Lake Wilmar through three coordinated performance tasks. They first investigate the effects of pH on freshwater animals by comparing the zooplankton counts from three different areas. They then...
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Treasure Hunt
Learners actively search a the ground outside and find several types of leaves, lichen, feathers and trash. They place items into journals, write entries, draw pictures and ask questions about the items found on their exploration.
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Why preserve biodiversity?
Middle schoolers view photos of endangered species on the Internet and discuss the reasons why these animals are threatened and why they should be protected. They use the words: biodiversity, ecosystem, and extinction in sentences to...
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Ecology and Ecosystem
Students are introduced to the concepts of ecology and ecosystems. In groups, they use the Internet to research one of six topics. They present their information to the class sharing the most interesting information they found. They...
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Forest Floor Terrarium
Students study the aspects of a forest floor ecosystem, including decomposition, the water cycle, food webs, the needs of living things, and physical vs. chemical change over an extended period. In addition, students conduct observations...
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The Bee Tree
Students engage in a variety of activities arranged around the reading of the book "The Bee Tree". This book will help students to understand the purpose of how an ecosystem can work together and that organisms influence each other for...
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Antifreeze - Anti Fish
Students participate in the production of a play that highlights the direct linkage between storm drains and natural river, stream, or creek ecosystems. They explore their thoughts, feelings, and actions through dramatic interaction and...
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Down, Dung and Dirty
Students investigate the stages of succession in animal dung communities. They create a dung culture using fresh cow, goat or horse dung then record data on the fungal species that appear over a two week period.
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Ecological Relationships
Students identify ecological elements and their factors on species, populations and food webs. They analyze ecosystems for these elements and research how these factors influence species survival rate. Predictions on conditions over time...
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Habitat Hunt: Clue Box
Students compile a collection of specimens, descriptions, and data that describe their local environment. They exchange this collection with another school and use their collection to determine the ecosystem surrounding the exchange school.
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Antarctica
Young scholars explore why Antarctica is so important to the planet. They investigate the physical characteristics. Students create their own unique treaty of governance for Antarctica and discuss how laws are enforced in Antarctica.
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The Many, Varied, and Unusual Places and Things on Earth
Students discover how energy flows through communities because of the relationship between producers, consumers and decomposers. Examining various ecosystems, they identify the materials that cycle continuously through them. They label...
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African Savanna
First graders are introduced to the ecosystems of savannas throughout the world. Using new vocabulary, they identify and describe the characteristics of a savanna and the animals that live there. They also describe the Earth's physical...
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Design an Island
Learners make a map of an imaginary island using the topographic symbols provided from a worksheet. Students place lakes, dwellins, reefs, etc. in areas where they would logically be located from understanding how the topography of an...
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Island Biogeography
Students work in small groups to sort through photos of an ecosystem following a major disturbance. They place these photos in chronological order to show the process of succession. They then do an experiment with yeast to show the...
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Food Webs
Pupils create a bulletin board display illustrating food chains they make from a list of ocean organisms. Students also play a game showing what happens when one of the organisms is removed from the food chain and how they are all...
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Food Webs
Students research rainforest animals and use that information to make a flow chart to show the order in which energy is transferred through several organisms. They label the producers, consumers, and decomposers in their chart.
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The Rainforest Community
Young scholars create a miniature rainforest ecosystem, a terrarium. Students then explain how the continuous flow of energy and food in the ecosystem allows it to sustain itself.
University of South Carolina
Home Sweet Home
Fifth graders will research a biome (land or aquatic) and create a project (diorama, model or another idea of the student's choosing) which includes the geographic features of that biome as well as plants and animals found there and...
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Populations and Ecosystems
Sixth graders define terms prey, predator, and scavenger, describe predator-prey relationship, discuss effects of a lack of predators in an environment, and separate the role of the scavenger from that of the predator.