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  Ecology
Ecology

Level: 8th Grade
Time Frame: 1 Quarter 
Description:  Students study the living and non-living components of an ecosystem.  Energy flow is illustrated using food chains and food webs.  Changes in ecosystems due to human impact are investigated.  Diversity of organism is explored as various natural communities are studied.  Theories of natural selection are considered along with systems of classification and nomenclature.

Overview
 Activity List
 Learning Objectives
 Standards
 Resources
 

Unit Overview
From the National Science Education Standards:
In the middle-school years, students should progress from studying life science from the point of view of individual organisms to recognizing patterns in ecosystems and developing understandings about the cellular dimensions of living systems. For example, students should broaden their understanding from the way one species lives in its environment to populations and communities of species and the ways they interact with each other and with their environment.

Students understand ecosystems and the interactions between organisms and environments well enough by this stage to introduce ideas about nutrition and energy flow, although some students might be confused by charts and flow diagrams. If asked about common ecological concepts, such as community and competition between organisms, teachers are likely to hear responses based on everyday experiences rather than scientific explanations. Teachers should use the students' understanding as a basis to develop the scientific understanding.

Understanding adaptation can be particularly troublesome at this level. Many students think adaptation means that individuals change in major ways in response to environmental changes (that is, if the environment changes, individual organisms deliberately adapt). Humans may adapt to some changes in this manner, but other organisms do not. Adaptation occurs primarily through natural selection for other species

From the Benchmarks for Science Literacy:
Science in the middle grades should provide students with opportunities to enrich their growing knowledge of the diversity of life on the planet and to begin to connect that knowledge to what they are learning in geography. That is, whenever students study a particular region in the world, they should learn about the plants and animals found there and how they are like or unlike those found elsewhere. Tracing simple food webs in varied environments can contribute to a better understanding of the dependence of organisms (including humans) on their environment.

Students should begin to extend their attention from external anatomy to internal structures and functions. Patterns of development may be brought in to further illustrate similarities and differences among organisms. Also, they should move from their invented classification systems to those used in modern biology. That is not done to teach them the standard system but to show them what features biologists typically use in classifying organisms and why. Classification systems are not part of nature. Rather, they are frameworks created by biologists for describing the vast diversity of organisms, suggesting relationships among living things, and framing research questions. A provocative exercise is to have students try to differentiate between familiar organisms that are alike in many ways—for example, between cats and small dogs.

In the middle grades, the emphasis is on following matter through ecosystems. Students should trace food webs both on land and in the sea. The food webs that students investigate should first be local ones they can study directly. The use of films of food webs in other ecosystems can supplement their direct investigations but should not substitute for them. Most students see food webs and cycles as involving the creation and destruction of matter, rather than the breakdown and reassembly of invisible units. They see various organisms and materials as consisting of different types of matter that are not convertible into one another. Before they have an understanding of atoms, the notion of reusable building blocks common to plants and animals is quite mysterious. So following matter through ecosystems needs to be linked to their study of atoms.

Students' attention should be drawn to the transfer of energy that occurs as one organism eats another. It is important that students learn the differences between how plants and animals obtain food and from it the energy they need. The first stumbling block is food, which represents one of those instances in which differences between the common use of a term and the technical one cause persistent confusion. In popular language, food is whatever nutrients plants and animals must take in if they are to grow and survive (solutions of minerals that plants need traces of frequently bear the label "plant food"); in scientific usage, food refers only to those substances, such as carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, from which organisms derive the energy they need to grow and operate and the material of which they are made. It's important to emphasize that the sugars that plants make out of water and carbon dioxide are their only source of food. Water and minerals dissolved in it are not sources of energy for plants or for animals.

Activity List

  • Lesson 1 (1:1) The Parts Make Up the Whole (Text pp. 5-9)

  • Lesson 2 (1:2) The Living Players (Text pp. 10-15)

  • Lesson 3 (1:3) The Nonliving Players (Text pp. 16-24)

  • Lesson 4 (2:1) Energy Flow (Text pp. 28-31)

  • Lesson 5 (2:2) Who Eats What? (Text pp. 32-43)

  • Lesson 6  Grassland Biome 

  • Lesson 7  Prairie Field Trip

  • Lesson 8  Prairie Investigations

  • Lesson 9 (3:1) Natural Changes (Text pp. 47-55)

  • Lesson 10 (3:2) Humans: What is Our Role? (Text pp. 56-63)

  • Lesson 11 (4:1) A Cycle of Diversity (Text pp. 75-77)

  • Lesson 12 (4:2) Diversity all Around (Text pp. 78-85) 

  • Lesson 13 (5:1) How Does It Happen (Adaptation) (Text pp. 89-95)

  • Lesson 14 (5:2) To Survive (Text pp. 96-105)

  • Moisture Misers:  Extension Activity Related to (pp. 102-103)

  • Lesson 15 (5:3) The Value of Diversity (Text pp. 106-110)

  • Lesson 16 (6:1) Ordering Diversity (Text pp. 114-131)35

  • Cricket Lab

  • Insect Guild Lab

  • Lesson 17 (6:2)  Finding a Name (Text pp. 132-135)

  • Tallgrass Prairie Video Activity                                      

 

 

 

Learning Objectives

  • Identify interactions taking place in the environment.

  • Explain the dependence3 of living and nonliving things on one another.

  • Classify parts of the environment as either biotic or abiotic.

  • Describe the difference between a habitat and a niche.

  • Define and compare commensalism, mutualism, and parasitism.

  • Identify commensalism, mutualism, parasitism.

  • Identify water, light, and temperature as important abiotic factors of the environment.

  • Explain what is meant by the "range of tolerance" for a given abiotic factor in the environment.

  • Provide examples of how plants and animals respond to changing abiotic factors in the environment.

  • Describe the differences between producers, consumers, and decomposers.

  • Identify the differences between herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores.

  • Identify how predator-prey relationships facilitate the flow of energy through a community.

  • Explain the importance of scavengers in a community.

  • Explain how energy flows through a community of living things.

  • Explain the difference between a food chain and a food web.

  • Diagram food chains and food webs.

  • Describe how a change in one part of a food web affects other parts of the web.

  • Identify the organisms in a food chain or a food web as either producers or consumers, and describe the role that they play in their community.

  • Explain what is meant by biological succession.

  • Describe changes that take place in biological communities.

  • Explain how a change in the population of one organism may affect the population of other organisms

  • Describe the characteristics of a specific biological community.

  • Identify some positive and negative influences that people can have on the environment.

  • Explain the consequences of acid rain on the environment.

  • Identify some of the sources of acid rain.

  • Suggest ways of preventing acid rain and of reversing its effects on the environment.

  • Identify ways in which people can have a positive effect on the environment.

  • Examine the cycle of diversity before and after a volcanic explosion.

  • Observe and describe the diversity of living things, including sizes, shape, and structure.

  • Compare groups of organisms in terms of their diversity.

  • Analyze and compare the theories of Lamarck and Darwin.

  • Predict how a species will adapt to changes in its habitat.

  • Observe Darwin's finches and use the theory of natural selection to analyze their differences.

  • Observe and describe animal and plant adaptations.

  • Infer how animal and plant adaptations help organisms to survive in their particular habitats.

  • Explain how the loss or addition of one species can affect other species in the community.

  • Explain some of the natural and human-made pressures that can cause extinction.

  • Describe how humans can cause or help prevent the extinction of an organism.

  • Classify living things into two kingdoms- plants and animals.

  • Classify animals into two groups- vertebrates and invertebrates.

  • Classify plants into two groups- mosses and plants with conducting tubes.

  • Explain the system that biologists use to name living things.

  • Observe and describe diversity within the species Homo sapiens.

Standards  

Illinois Learning Standards (Middle School)  As a result of their schooling students will be able to: 

12B.     Know and apply concepts that describe how living things interact with each other and with their environment:

12.B.3a       Identify and classify biotic and abiotic factors in an environment that affect population density, habitat and  

                  placement of organisms in an energy pyramid.

12.B.3b       Compare and assess features of organisms for their adaptive, competitive and survival potential (e.g., appendages, reproductive rates, camouflage, defensive structures).

 

13B.     Know and apply concepts that describe the interaction between science, technology and society.

13.B.3d       Analyze the interaction of resource acquisition, technological development and ecosystem impact (e.g., diamond, coal or gold mining; deforestation).

 

Illinois Science Assessment Framework: Grade 7  Although this unit will be taught after the administration of the 7th grade ISAT exam, the framework provides a good guide to the important primary concepts for this topic.

 

For the 7th grade ISAT, students are expected to be able to:

 

12.7.23  Understand that competitive feeding habits between species can have a negative effect on their populations. Understand that animals and plants compete for food, shelter, mates, and other things necessary for life and reproduction.
12.7.24 Know what natural selection or survival of the fittest is, and understand that this is thought to be one of the explanations for how animals and plants change over time, and that it was the explanation given by Charles Darwin.
12.7.27 Identify the temporal order in which major groups of organisms are thought to have appeared on the earth: 1. bacteria and other unicellular organisms, 2. invertebrate animals (trilobites, sponges), 3. jawless fishes, then fishes with jaws, 4. reptiles, 5. flowering plants, 6. mammals, and 7. people and modern animals.
12.7.28 Understand how comparative anatomy offers evidence that organisms have changed over time. (1) Assuming that organisms have changed over time offers some explanation for similarities in body structures of different species by proposing that they descended from the same parent-species. (2) The same assumption can explain vestigial organs by proposing that new organs can make older organs obsolete or unnecessary, which therefore become disused and smaller (like the vestigial legs on some snakes).
12.7.29 Understand that three important cycles for the survival of living things in Earth's ecosystems are the carbon dioxide-oxygen cycle, the water cycle, and the nitrogen cycle.
12.7.30 Understand that the number of organisms an ecosystem can support depends on the resources available and abiotic factors (e.g., the quantity of light and water, the range of temperatures, and soil composition). Know that given adequate biotic and abiotic resources and no disease or predators, populations can increase at rapid rates. Understand that lack of resources and other factors (e.g., predation and climate) limit the growth of populations in specific niches in the ecosystem.
12.7.31 Understand that competitive feeding habits between species can have a negative effect on their populations. Understand that animals and plants compete for food, shelter, mates, and other things necessary for life and reproduction.
12.7.32 Distinguish the various members of a food web and identify the order of dependence among these members.
12.7.33 Understand that many plants depend upon certain animals for pollination and the spreading out of their seeds, and therefore to reproduce. Conversely, understand that animals depend on plants for food (either immediately, like herbivores; or intermediately, like carnivores) and shelter.
12.7.34 Understand that the behavior of different organisms is influenced by internal cues (e.g., hunger) and by external cues (e.g., a change in the environment).
12.7.35 Identify and describe the basic kinds of habitats: freshwater vs. saltwater, river, pond, desert, forest, and prairie.
12.7.36 Identify and describe the major biomes and their characteristics: desert, grassland, savannah, tropical forest, coniferous forest, and tundra.
12.7.01  Identify common insects, flowers, birds, reptiles, and mammals by their features.
12.7.02 Understand that animals have parts well suited to the places they live in and to their needs. For example, rabbits radiate heat through their ears, and those living in hotter climates have larger ears to radiate heat more efficiently. Thus, given a list of animals, one of which is clearly better adapted to a given environment, understand that that is the animal which lives in that environment.

 National Science Education Standards: Earth and Space Science As a result of their activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop an understanding of populations and ecosystems

  • A population consists of all individuals of a species that occur together at a given place and time. All populations living together and the physical factors with which they interact compose an ecosystem.
  • Populations of organisms can be categorized by the function they serve in an ecosystem. Plants and some micro-organisms are producers--they make their own food. All animals, including humans, are consumers, which obtain food by eating other organisms. Decomposers, primarily bacteria and fungi, are consumers that use waste materials and dead organisms for food. Food webs identify the relationships among producers, consumers, and decomposers in an ecosystem.
  • For ecosystems, the major source of energy is sunlight. Energy entering ecosystems as sunlight is transferred by producers into chemical energy through photosynthesis. That energy then passes from organism to organism in food webs.
  • The number of organisms an ecosystem can support depends on the resources available and abiotic factors, such as quantity of light and water, range of temperatures, and soil composition. Given adequate biotic and abiotic resources and no disease or predators, populations (including humans) increase at rapid rates. Lack of resources and other factors, such as predation and climate, limit the growth of populations in specific niches in the ecosystem.

 

Benchmarks for Science Literacy By the end of 8th grade, students should know that

  • In all environments—freshwater, marine, forest, desert, grassland, mountain, and others—organisms with similar needs may compete with one another for resources, including food, space, water, air, and shelter. In any particular environment, the growth and survival of organisms depend on the physical conditions.
  • Two types of organisms may interact with one another in several ways: They may be in a producer/consumer, predator/prey, or parasite/host relationship. Or one organism may scavenge or decompose another. Relationships may be competitive or mutually beneficial. Some species have become so adapted to each other that neither could survive without the other.
  • Food provides molecules that serve as fuel and building material for all organisms. Plants use the energy in light to make sugars out of carbon dioxide and water. This food can be used immediately for fuel or materials or it may be stored for later use. Organisms that eat plants break down the plant structures to produce the materials and energy they need to survive. Then they are consumed by other organisms.
  • Over a long time, matter is transferred from one organism to another repeatedly and between organisms and their physical environment. As in all material systems, the total amount of matter remains constant, even though its form and location change.
  • Energy can change from one form to another in living things. Animals get energy from oxidizing their food, releasing some of its energy as heat. Almost all food energy comes originally from sunlight.
  • Small differences between parents and offspring can accumulate (through selective breeding) in successive generations so that descendants are very different from their ancestors.
  • Individual organisms with certain traits are more likely than others to survive and have offspring. Changes in environmental conditions can affect the survival of individual organisms and entire species.
  • One of the most general distinctions among organisms is between plants, which use sunlight to make their own food, and animals, which consume energy-rich foods. Some kinds of organisms, many of them microscopic, cannot be neatly classified as either plants or animals.
  • Animals and plants have a great variety of body plans and internal structures that contribute to their being able to make or find food and reproduce.
  • Similarities among organisms are found in internal anatomical features, which can be used to infer the degree of relatedness among organisms. In classifying organisms, biologists consider details of internal and external structures to be more important than behavior or general appearance.
  • All organisms, including the human species, are part of and depend on two main interconnected global food webs. One includes microscopic ocean plants, the animals that feed on them, and finally the animals that feed on those animals. The other web includes land plants, the animals that feed on them, and so forth. The cycles continue indefinitely because organisms decompose after death to return food material to the environment.

  • Resources

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