Teaching Ecology Post 7: Humans and the Environment

This topic of ecology, "Human Impact on the Environment" is what I always think of as a "backward lesson" in my biology classes.  Throughout the school year, I constantly ask my students to consider how the environment affects a particular process or an anatomical structure, but in this lesson I am asking my students to consider how THEY affect the environment.

The role of the environment as an influence in Natural Selection is a common theme in my class.  We revisit it over and over again throughout the year.  In this ecology topic, the theme is completely flipped.  Now it is time to reverse this common thread and have our students consider how we, the human species, have affected the environment.

Humans have had an impact on this planet for most of human history. Activities such as agriculture, logging, mining, urban development, the burning of fossil fuels, the clear cutting of forests and exponential population growth have no doubt changed the surface of our planet.  Because of these activities, this may very well be the most important unit we teach our students all year long.  The students sitting in our classrooms today are the protectors and caretakers of the Earth of tomorrow.  It is imperative that we give these students the knowledge and the tools they need to be good decision makers of the future.  The fate of our planet is literally in their hands.

It is interesting how a typical high school biology class is a microcosm of our society.  When discussing these issues, the students immediately take sides.  The range of opinions is all over the place, from "protect the Earth at all cost" to "I will always drive this huge pickup truck" to everything in between.

Humans and the Environment PowerPoint with Notes for Teacher and Student

If you are looking for some lively classroom debate and loud arguing, this is the perfect lesson!!  The printable lesson is perfect for traditional classroom settings, and the paperless, digital Google Apps version is perfect for distance learning and 1:1 classrooms. 

Much of the clipart used in this PowerPoint was created by my dear friend, Tracee Orman.  You may know Tracee as the author of tremendously popular Hunger Games lesson plans and activities, but she is also quite accomplished at creating clip art.  You can view all of her clipart HERE.

Have FUN teaching......

Teaching Ecology Post 6: Biomes of the World

Biomes: 

An Interesting Look at our World

A biome is a group of ecosystems that has the same general climate, and contains a particular group of plant and animal species.  A biome is characterized by certain soil and climate conditions.  An organism cannot live in just any old biome. Each species of organism has a set of particular adaptations that makes it well suited for a particular biome. Each plant and animal species has a different tolerance level.  Tolerance is the ability to survive and reproduce in conditions that are outside of the optimum conditions for that organism.  For example, an animal adapted to living in a desert has a high tolerance, since this animal can tolerate blistering hot temperatures during the day, and freezing temperatures at night.  An insect that lives in a rain forest, however, would die quickly if the temperature became too cold.

A biome has climax communities with little of no succession taking place.  The climax community is the result of succession.  In succession, the community proceeds through a series of stages until it reaches a stable end point. At each stage of succession, the organisms present alter the physical environment in ways that make it less favorable for their own survival, but more favorable to the survival of the species that follow them.  The climax community is the result of succession.  The plant and animal species of this climax community are stable populations that will remain constant over a long period of time.

Events called disturbances may change the face of a particular ecosystem.  Examples of disturbances include forest fires, floods, and volcanic eruptions.  These events have drastic effects on the organisms living in the community.  When these things happen, nature starts over (succession) in restoring living organisms to the area.

All of this is very interesting and my students are generally quite eager and receptive when I teach this information.  In almost every day of their life, these students are exposed to news events of hurricanes, floods, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, forest fires, etc.  It is important that our biology students understand the impact of these disturbances and how these changes will affect a geographic area.

How many biomes are there, and how should we go about teaching them to our students??  In my experience, there is not a definitive answer to the "how many" question. It depends on which textbook or other informative source you read!  I begin with a simple explanation: There are terrestrial biomes and aquatic biomes.  I am sure that there will be some disagreement with this, but I have found that teaching 8 basic terrestrial biomes works the best for my students. Which 8?  I break them down into the following:

• tundra
• taiga
• chaparral
• temperate deciduous forests
• temperate grasslands
• deserts
• savannas
• tropical rain forests

The aquatic ecosystems can be subdivided in many ways as well.  You might first differentiate between ocean zones and freshwater zones.  Oceans zones would include photic zones, aphotic zones, intertidal zones, neritic zones, oceanic zones, benthic zones and estuaries.  Freshwater areas would include lakes, streams, rivers, marshes, bogs and swamps.

As you can see from above (I hope!), teaching the biomes should be very visual.  My students love pictures and visual examples of the concepts I am teaching.  In my PowerPoint presentation, I try to include as many photographs as possible.  There is only one drawback..... When you show a classroom full of students a LOT of pictures, they will ask a LOT of questions!!  But this is what makes teaching so much fun!  Here are a few of the slides from my Powerpoint presentation on biomes:

Biomes of the World PowerPoint with Notes for Teacher and Student

Have fun teaching!

Teaching Ecology Post 5: The Flow of Energy Through the Ecosystem

Over the last few days, I have been telling you about my attempt to make teaching a unit on Ecology more appealing to both me and my students.  If you haven't been keeping up, here is a quick review:

• I'm not wild about teaching ecology.
• My students are not wild about learning ecology.
• I was looking for a better way to teach it.
• I broke it down into 6 different units of study:  Intro to Ecology, Population Ecology, Community Ecology, Energy Flow Through the Ecosystem, Biomes, and the Human Impact on the Environment.
• I have already written blog posts about the first 3 units.
• Here is the blog post about the 4th unit!

Whew! Now you are caught up!!

So today brings us to the 4th unit of study:  The Flow of Energy Through the Ecosystem and the Recycling of Matter.   Now THIS is a lesson that I can get into!  I have said all along.... I think ecology is important and I definitely need to make sure that I teach it to my students, but I am a cell physiology type of person.  I like teaching the "micro" rather than the "macro".  The flow of energy through the ecosystem is right up my alley since my favorite topics of instruction are photosynthesis and respiration!!  

As with all of my teaching PowerPoints, I think that a captivating visual display is essential in today's classroom.  Our students are so used to special effects, that we must include as many graphics and photographs as possible in order to keep their attention.  Take a look at a few of the slides I prepared for this lesson:

Topics covered in this lesson are:

1.   Energy Flow Through the Ecosystem:  Sunlight as a source of energy, importance of photosynthesis, conversion of energy into glucose and other organic compounds.

2.   Autotrophs, producers, examples of autotrophs, chemoautotrophs and chemosynthesis.

3.   Heterotrophs, consumers, examples of heterotrophs, herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, detritivores, decomposers, the essential nature of decomposition.

4.   Feeding Relationships:  One way flow of energy through the ecosystem, food chains, examples of food chains, food webs, trophic levels, primary producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, tertiary consumers.

5.   Productivity of the Ecosystem:  Two ways to measure productivity, gross primary productivity, the role of glucose in productivity, biomass, net primary productivity, factors that determine productivity in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.

6.   Energy transfer between trophic levels, ecological pyramids, percentage of energy that moves up to the next trophic level, reasons why the transfer of energy is so low.

7.   Given a hypothetical food chain, the student will identify the autotroph, the primary consumer, secondary consumer, and tertiary consumer as well as calculate the amount of energy passed to each trophic level.

8.   Ecosystem recycling:  the recycling of matter, the essential need to recycle carbon, nitrogen, water, and phosphorus, biogeochemical cycles.

9.   Water Cycle:  Location of water, evaporation, precipitation, transpiration, condensation, steps to water cycle, students will complete a diagram of the water cycle.

10. The Carbon Cycle:  The importance of carbon to organic compounds, the role of photosynthesis and cellular respiration in the carbon cycle, the role of erosion and volcanic activity in the carbon cycle, decomposition, burning of fossil fuels, steps to the carbon cycle, the student will label a diagram of the carbon cycle, the human impact on the carbon cycle.

11. The Nitrogen Cycle:  The importance of nitrogen in building proteins and nucleic acids, nitrogen fixation, ammonification, nitrification, denitrification, assimilation, the role of various bacteria in the nitrogen cycle, students will label a diagram of the nitrogen cycle.

12. The Phosphorus Cycle:  The importance of phosphorus to ATP and nucleotides, the movement of phosphorus through the ecosystem.

13. Limiting nutrients.

Thanks for visiting and ...... HAVE FUN TEACHING!

Energy Flow Through the Ecosystem and the Recycling of Matter

Teaching Ecology Post 4: Community Ecology

NOW it is getting interesting!!

In my trek through the world of ecology with my biology 1 students, I suffer a bit through the first few units.  If you have read my previous posts of the last few days, you know that ecology is not my favorite topic to teach.  I have to dig deep within myself to find the enthusiasm to teach about ecology.....at the beginning, that is.  Once I get to the unit on Community Ecology, things definitely get much more interesting!!

A community is ALL of the living organisms found in a particular area. These organisms interact with one another and have powerful influences upon the other species as well as the entire ecosystem.  Consider the introduction of beaver into an area that is normally a "flowing-water" ecosystem.  Beaver would have a huge impact on this community. Recently I received feedback from a teacher that said my PowerPoints were very "visual" and that this had been a big help in teaching his students.   Here's a peak at a few of the slides in my "Community Ecology" unit.

Topics covered in this lesson are:
1. Community Interactions: Definition of community, types of community interactions such as competition, predation, symbiosis, mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism.
2. Competition: Definition of competition, resource, competitive exclusion principle, character displacement, many examples, resource partitioning, the result of organisms having identical niches.
3. Predation: Definition, examples, predator, prey, the role of natural selection, adaptations found in predators, adaptations found in prey, mimicry, adaptations found in plants and herbivores.
4. Symbiosis: Definition of symbiosis, types of symbiosis, mutualism, commensalism, parasitism, examples of each.
5. Properties of Communities: Species richness and diversity, definition of species richness, definition of species diversity, the species-area effect, the result of habitat destruction.
6. Succession: Disturbances, definition and examples of disturbances, types of succession, primary succession, examples of primary succession, secondary succession, examples of secondary succession, pioneer species, climax communities.
7. Succession in a Marine Ecosystem: A Whale-Fall Community.


Now this is subject matter that will be of interest to a biology student!  Start showing pictures of parasitic worms, blood sucking insects, and predator-prey relationships, and students will wake up and take an interest.  


I hope this gives you a few ideas.  But most importantly.....

.....HAVE FUN TEACHING!

Community Ecology PowerPoint with Notes for Teacher and Student

Teaching Ecology Post 3: Population Ecology

A population is a group of organisms, all of the same species, living in the same general area.  Population ecology is a sub-field of ecology that deals with the dynamics of how a species interacts within its population and how the species interacts with the environment.

My personal opinion is that this is not the most exciting topic to teach in a high school biology class.  No offense to any of you population biologists out there, but this can be a little dry and boring.   My plan of attack is to move swiftly, lay out the important points accurately and efficiently, throw in some cool pictures and graphics, and then move on out of this unit!!

Pertinent points to cover include:
1. Characteristics of Populations: Definition of population, geographic distribution, density, dispersion, growth rate, and age structure.
2. Types of Dispersion: Clumped, even, and random.
3. Population Dynamics: Birth rate, death rate, life expectancy.
4. Patterns of mortality: Survivorship Curves, the three types of survivorship curves with examples.
5. Life Histories: Big-bang reproduction and repeated reproduction
6. Population Growth: Growth rate, factors that determine the size of a population, migration, density, exponential growth, carrying capacity, limits to population growth, graphs of different types of population growth, logistic growth, assumptions of the exponential model and the logistic model.
7. Limits to Growth: Limiting factors, examples of limiting factors, density-dependent factors, competition, predation, parasitism, disease, territoriality, density independent factors.
8. Human Population Growth: The history of human population growth, current human population growth, demographic transition, age-structure diagrams.


Put all of this into a PowerPoint and you come up with:

Population Genetics PowerPoint with Notes for Teacher and Student

Teaching Ecology Post 2: Introduction to Ecology

For as much as I love biology and for as many years as I have taught biology, I continue to find the topic of "Ecology" a difficult one to teach.  I have never really been able to put my finger on exactly why this is the case.  The only thing I can come up with is:

• I am a cell physiologist at heart.  I just love, love, love teaching photosynthesis, respiration, protein synthesis, and the like.  
• My students never really show any excitement while learning about ecology.  The very students that are energetic and ask a lot of questions at other times of the year, become strangely silent during the unit on ecology.
• Put the above two reasons together, and what does my self analysis tell me?  Perhaps, my lack of enthusiasm for ecology has a direct impact on my students!!  

I am never a satisfied teacher.  Each year, I am determined to improve my "weakest link."  So this past school year, I was more determined than ever to "like" ecology and get my students excited about it. I started by breaking down the material into 6 mini-units of study:

• Introduction to Ecology
• Population Ecology
• Community Ecology
• Ecosystems and the Biosphere Part 1:  Energy Flow Through the Ecosystem
• Ecosystems and the Biosphere Part 1:  Biomes of the World
• Human Impact on the Biosphere

Since my students always respond well to PowerPoint lectures, I wrote a PowerPoint for each mini-unit above, making sure that I included as many pictures and cool graphics as possible.  I literally WOWED them with clipart, graphics and photographs.

The first PowerPoint is called Introduction to Ecology, and here is a sneak peak.

This PowerPoint covers the following information:

1. What is ecology?
2. The Role of Climate: What is the difference between weather and climate? What factors affect climate?
3. The State of Today's Environment: The exploding human population, the sixth mass extinction, the damage to the ozone layer, and climate changes.
4. The greenhouse effect, greenhouse gases, human activities that contribute to the greenhouse effect.
5. The Effect of Latitude on Climate: Polar zones, temperate zones, and tropical zones.
6. Heat Transfer in the Biosphere: Winds, currents.
7. Levels of Ecological Organization: Biosphere, ecosystems, communities, populations, and organisms.
8. The living and the nonliving components of an ecosystem.
9. The theme of interconnectedness and interdependence in ecology.
10. Biotic and abiotic factors
11. Habitat -vs- Niche.

I was very pleased with how this was received by my students. This PowerPoint is a great start in laying the foundation of all the ecological concepts to come.  If you are interested, I have made this PowerPoint available in my store on TeachersPayTeachers.com.  It consists of 41 slides and comes with notes for both the teacher and student.  The student notes are in outline form.  The students fills in their outline as the lessons are being taught.

Introduction to Ecology PowerPoint and Notes

Teaching Ecology

Since I have been teaching biology for 28 years, I have been through many textbook adoptions during my career.  "Back in the day" the ecology chapters would always be the last chapters and the last unit in the textbook.  Like many other biology teachers, I rarely had time to teach that material.  Those of us who teach biology already know that there is WAAAAAAYYY more material that needs to be taught than there is time to teach it.  Since my favorite teaching topics are cell physiology, genetics and plants, I had no trouble spending too much time on these topics.  All of a sudden it is the end of the year, and I had to leave something out....... it was always ecology!

Poor ecology!!  It is not that I don't like you....  I just don't have time to get to you!

Fast forward to 28 years later.  NOW, the ecology unit is in the front of the textbook for most Biology I books.  AND, now we have an "End of Course" test for Biology I in my state.  AND, ecology standards are covered on the EOC.  Guess what?  I had to start making sure that I covered ecology!

Ecology is a rather daunting topic.  There are so many concepts that have to be covered.  I needed a plan of attack.  After reviewing the material, I decided to break it down into 6 mini-units of study:

• Introduction to Ecology
• Population Ecology
• Community Ecology
• Ecosystems and the Biosphere Part 1:  Energy Flow Through the Ecosystem
• Ecosystems and the Biosphere Part 1:  Biomes of the World
• Human Impact on the Biosphere

To me, some of this material is rather dry.  Parts of it really excite my students, while other parts are a strong sedative to a class of high schoolers!  I knew I would need something visually stimulating and eye-catching to keep their attention.  Since my students always respond well to PowerPoint lectures, I wrote a PowerPoint for each mini-unit above, making sure that I included as many pictures and cool graphics as possible.

Stay tuned.......   My summer blogging plan is to cover one mini-unit a day.  Up tomorrow, ..... Introduction to Ecology!