Investigation Sequence
Title
Ecosystems Robert D. Sweetland Date 1974, 2004Focus Questions
What are environmental factors?
What is a community?
What is an ecosystem?
How are they related and not related?
Concepts
Content: Earth, Physical, & Life
Vocabulary
Community, organism, environmental factors, plants, decomposers, producers, mold, algae, yeaast, bacteria, virus, oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, heat, light, gravity, water, plant consumers, animal consumers, water cycle, pollutant, pollution, ecosystem, aquarium, terrarium, population, food chaiin, food web, biome, control, fertilizer, nutrients, circle of life.
Cross cutting concepts
Ecosystems and constancy, measurement, and change...
Ecosystems in evolution and equilibrium...
Models ...
Science Practice
Experiments need controls to ...
Personal, Social, Technology, Nature of Science, History
Water cycle for life...
Humans change ecosystems...
Pollution...
Pollutants...
Background information
Activity Sequence
Exploration Activity
Invention Activities
Design an ecosystem and maintain it.
Describe all organisms and popluations in an ecosystem.
Mold as a decomposer
Invent ecosystem model
Where watter comes from experiment
Moisture in the air
Invent the need for clean water and the water cycle model
Freon
Review water cycle and add to ecosystem model
Human breath, BTB, carbon dioxide experiment
Carbon dioxide hunt
Review BTB as an indicator
Snails and BTB
Water plants and BTB
Fish and carbon dioxide
Invent the carbon dioxide and oxygen cycle
Decomposers and carbon dioxide
Fertilizer andplant gowth
Tracking fertilizer
Invent pollutant and pollution and add to ecosystem model
Expansion Activity
Activity Descriptions