8th Grade Science Guide

8.3: Ecology 3 Dimensions & Progressions

Unit 3

Activity: Food Webs & Biomes

Objective

Overview

Materials

●​ Introduce students to food webs, and explain how food chains are a bit more complex and can be better shown as webs. ●​ Allow students to review the food web picture independently, and then discuss the interconnections that they discovered with a partner. ●​ Students are assigned a biome and they create a food web that would be found in that biome.

●​ Food Web Image ●​ Food Web Project

●​ I can identify living and nonliving parts of an ecosystem. ●​ I can identify and analyze connections and roles between organism in an ecosystem.

Activity: Food Web Lab

Objective

Overview

Materials

●​ Students simulate organisms in an ecosystem to show interconnectedness of all animals.

●​ Lab

●​ I can identify and analyze connections and roles between organism in an ecosystem.

Activity: Cycling of Matter in an Ecosystem - Inquiry Lab

Objective

Overview

Materials

●​ I can make connections between ecosystem changes and the stability of cycling matter between living and nonliving parts of an ecosystem. ●​ I can describe evaluate how changes in an ecosystem affect the flow of energy through the carbon cycle.

●​ Students will use a model of a commons area (the ocean) to see what it takes to maintain a sustainable harvest of fish.

●​ Lab ●​ Toothpicks

The best part is that the only materials required are a lot of toothpicks!