The Teacher Guide is the driving and unifying component of this unit, Ecosystem Dynamics. In this unit, students investigate the phenomenon of changes to an ecosystem. The subtitle of this unit is does changing an ecosystem change what lives there? Students have familiarity from their own surroundings and from news around the world how changes to natural systems can affect, and even threaten the extinction of, organisms. 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 an area. Then students confront changes in areas around them and make choices of how to communicate threats to the environment to others. 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 the shared experience, formulate new questions, and developing new strategies for answering them.

CKSci Middle School is an enhanced republication of the OpenSciEd Middle School project–with a unique, integrated Core Knowledge science literacy component.

Learn more about the CKSci Middle School Program