Urban Ecosystems 2: Why Are There Cities? A Historical Perspective

From tiny organisms to entire biomes, young scientists examine the interdependent relationships tying all living and non-living things together with this collection of ecology resources.

Learners explore the interdependence of the animals and plants in tropical rainforests. They explore the importance of conserving biodiversity and tropical food chains. They create a tropical forest food chain and identify species that...

In this ecosystem exploration worksheet, students complete 2 prior knowledge questions, then use "Forest Ecosystem Gizmo" to conduct several activities, completing short answer questions when finished.

Would you believe we are salting our food as it grows? Water tables rise in areas cleared for crops causing the salty water to reach the roots of those crops. The video narrator explains the negative effects on plants as well as...

Second in a series of five lessons, this lesson encourages preteens to consider cities as urban ecosystems. First, they keep a food diary for a few days. They visit the Natrional Agricultural Statistics Service website for current data...

Students discover that material and energy uses by a city come from outside the city boundaries. They realize that the pathway of these material is linear instead of cyclical as they are in natural ecosystems.

A disgusting and direct description of detritus and decomposition is digested in this drill! Your life science class learns about the importance of decomposers in the food chain and finds out how one organism's trash is another...

Cities are compared to living, breathing, metabolizing organisms. Fourth in a five-part series of lessons, this one focuses on the flow of materials through a city. Links to interesting websites and images make your delivery of...

Middle schoolers discover that throughout history cities have been centers of population but that human exploitation of fossil fuels was key to the growth of large cities worldwide. They research urban growth through a number of websites.

Students obtain remote sensing data to compare and contrast global biomass data with global temperature data.