Discuss biomes and different types of habitats with your students.
Ecosystems are a topic that will engage students of any age, and lessons easily can be tailored to students' age and ability level. Because every town is part of a larger ecosystem, students already are surrounded by the concepts they will be studying, making the lessons more relevant. Use ecosystems as a recurring theme in your science courses or create a whole unit in an elementary class and transform the room into an ecosystem for a month. Remind students about the interconnectedness of organisms and include humans in your study of ecosystems, too.
Ecosystem Overview Activity
Give groups of students pictures of different things in an ecosystem, such as trees, insects, animals and soil. Assign students to write lists of what every ecosystem needs to be complete. Then pass out pictures of human activities such as logging, growing crops and erecting buildings. Have students try to match the activities to the elements that are affected in the ecosystem. They will discover that all of their elements will be affected, even from small-scale activities; have them map out a flow chart showing how one activity can affect many elements. Older students can do this as an introductory activity; younger students can do a similar activity as a culminating project.
Ecosystem in a Bottle
Once students understand the basic elements required for a healthy ecosystem, have each student build their own "ecosystem" inside of a small container such as a 2-liter bottle or large glass jar. Provide students with the components of an aquatic habitat: snails, duckweed, substrate, guppies, etc. Over the course of the unit, have students record the state of their habitats each day, taking note of the health and appearance of each organism as well as the water quality. If any organisms look unhealthy, discuss why this might be: Are the plants crowding one another? Is another snail necessary? Is there too little substrate? Attempt to rectify the problem and maintain stable ecosystems.
Ecosystem Breakdown
Play a game where each student receives a card telling them what kind of organism he is and how much of a resource he requires. For instance, a card might read, "Deer --- food 3, water 1, shelter 4, space 2" Then place sticky notes all over the room in four colors representing food, water, shelter and space. Give the students several minutes to collect the number of sticky notes their card indicates. The deer would gather 3 green notes, 1 blue one etc. Organisms that do not gather the proper number would die. Do "experiments" by "polluting" the water for a round and removing half of the water sticky notes. Discuss with the students how the changes in resources impacts the different organisms.
Food Webs
Build food webs with your students to demonstrate the interconnected ecosystems. For young children, a simple wheel on a paper plate with pictures of plants, a rabbit and a bobcat will be enough to introduce the concept of a food chain. Older students can do more advanced projects; for instance constructing food pyramids from painted wooden blocks, and webs including the sun and smaller organisms like phytoplankton.
Tags: sticky notes, each student, ecosystems Ecosystem, food water, food water shelter
