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 fow 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 fsh.

● Lab ● Toothpicks

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