CKSci Unit 5: Ecosystem Dynamics
Focus:
In this unit, students investigate the effects of changes to an ecosystem. They ask questions about how one change in an ecosystem can affect many aspects within it. The subtitle of this unit is Does changing an ecosystem change what lives there? From their own experiences as well as from news reports, students may already be aware that changes to ecosystems can affect or even threaten the existence of the animals and plants living within those ecosystems. Starting with an examination of how the world’s demand for palm oil threatens the ecosystem that supports the orangutan, students build an understanding of the interconnectedness of living things in a particular area. Students ask questions and explore other ecosystems to see if there are similar examples of how financially driven demands and/or uninformed choices might have unexpected or undesirable effects on a particular ecosystem. Then students will have an opportunity to address various changes in the areas where they live and choose how to communicate threats to the environment to others as well as confront their own behaviors that may be contributing to the problems. This unit allows students to observe the phenomenon of a force acting through a distance in detail and then spend time working with classmates to analyze their shared experience, formulate new questions, and develop new strategies for answering them. Students explore concepts that include the following:
- How could buying candy affect orangutan populations in the wild?
- Can we grow oil palm trees somewhere else so that we’re not cutting down tropical rainforests?
- How have changes in our community affected what lives here?
- Would planting more rainforest fruit trees help the orangutan population increase?
- What would happen if orangutans became extinct?
- How does an ecosystem change when the plants change?
- How can people benefit from growing food in ways that support plants and animals in the natural ecosystem?
As students move through their day-to-day activities, they will also read Core Knowledge literacy selections. These include factual articles, history of the sciences, art and literature, spotting bad science in the media and advertisements, graphics comprehension, research-type articles, reliability of sources, and other areas of science literacy.
Number of Lessons:
- Teacher Guide: 20 Lessons
- Student Reader: 5 Collections
Instruction Time (Student Reader):
- Lessons are designed to be completed in one or more class periods.
- A Pacing Guide found in Online Resources offers a suggested time to complete the entire unit if class is held each day.
- The entire unit should take about 40 days to complete if class is held each day.
- A complete list of Materials needed to complete the unit is provided in Online Resources.
Additional Search Terms:
science literacy • ecosystem • ecosystem dynamics • ecotourism • resource • ecology • habitat • habitat fragmentation • invasive species • population • population sampling • quadrant • transect • bottleneck effect • K-selection species • R-selection species • extinction • bycatch • monocrop • nonfiction • informational text
