Ecology

Everywhere on the plant organisms interact with their environment.  Whether these interactions are with living or non-living components of an ecosystem they have implications for not only the individual but often all other living organisms around them.  This is the study of ecology: the interactions of organisms with their environment.  Not surprisingly this is a broad topic and this unit will introduce and examine many of the different aspects of ecology including communities, populations, classification, and the greenhouse effect.

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Ecology Standards

Assignments:

1. Ecology Notes
2. Duckweed Population Growth Lab
3. Energy Transfer Lab
4. Carbon Cycle Animations
5. Greenhouse Effect Lab
6. Greenhouse Effect Lab Data Turn-In
7. Greenhouse Effect Lab Data Summary
8. Food Web Activity
9. Building a Dichotomous Key Activity
10. Zoo Field Trip
11. Climate Change Data Analysis
12. American Bison Population Growth Example

Resources

Lab Standards Explained
Ecology Quizlet Set

Communities & Ecosystems:

• Crash Course Biology: Ecology
• McGraw-Hill: Energy Flow Animation
• Ted Talk: 6 Ways Mushrooms Can Save the World
• Ted Talk: My Mushroom Burial Suit

Greenhouse Effect:

• Carbon Cycle Animation
• Grenhouse Effect Animation
• PhET: The Greenhouse Effect
• The Precautionary Principal
• Nature's Redrawing the Arctic Map: The new north
• NASA's Arctic Sea Ice 101
• NASA Climate Change Evidence Summary
• The Guardian's Ultimate Climate Change FAQ
• TED Talk: Rob Dunbar, The threat of ocean acidification
• TED Talk: Lee Hotz, Inside an Antarctic time machine

Populations:

• Ted Talk: Global Population Growth, Box by Box
• Crash Course Guy: The Science of Overpopulation
• Population Interactive Simulation
• Population Changes Animation

Classification:

• Dichotomous Key Example

Chi-Squared Calculations:

• Using Contingency Tables
• Khan Academy: Contingency Table Chi-Squared Test
• Chi-Squared Table

Notes & Lectures:

4.1 - Species Communities & Ecosystems

4.2 - Energy Flow

4.3 - Carbon Cycle

4.4 - Climate Change

5.3 - Classification