Ecosystems and Populations #1 - Edline

Missouri Grade Level Expectations
Strand 4: Changes in Ecosystems and Interactions of

Organisms with Their Environments

#1 Organisms are interdependent with one another and
with their environment.

A. All populations living together within a community
interact with one another and with their environment in
order to survive and maintain a balanced ecosystem.

a. identify the biotic and abiotic factors that make up
an ecosystem.

B. Living organisms have the capacity to produce populations
of infinite size, but environments and resources are finite.

a. identify populations within a community that are in
competition with one another for resources.

b. recognize the factors that affect the number and
types of organisms an ecosystem can support (ex. food
availability, abiotic factors such as quantity of light
and water, temperature and temperature range, soil
composition, disease, competitions from other
organisms, predation).

c. predict the possible effects of changes in the number
and types of organisms in an ecosystem on the
populations of other organisms within that ecosystem.

D. The diversity of species within an ecosystem is affected by
changes in the environment, which can be cause by other
organisms or outside processes.

#2 Matter and energy flow through an ecosystem.

A. As energy flows through an ecosystem, all organisms
capture a portion of that energy and transform it to a form
they can use.

a. diagram and describe the transfer of energy in an
aquatic food web and a land food web with reference
to producers, consumers, decomposers, scavengers, and
predator/ prey relationships.

B. Matter is recycled through an ecosystem.

Essential Questions:

Can something as simple as a butterfly flapping its
wings really start a series of significant interactions?
How connected are all living things?

If massive amounts of energy come to Earth each day
in the form of sunlight, what happens to it? What
happens to energy?

Understandings:

1. There are many living and nonliving factors that make up all
ecosystems.

2. The ways that organisms interact with each other in an
ecosystem can be classified into different types.

3. Nonliving factors (ex. water) can have an affect on the lives of
living organisms.

4. The number or organisms in a population, or ecosystem, is
limited by a number of factors (ex. competition, access to water,
availability of food, type of habitat, and predation).

5. The diversity of species in a ecosystem is affected by many
different factors (both human and natural).

6. Energy moves through an ecosystem from producers to
consumers and back to producers through decomposers.

Knowledge:

1. Students will know that organisms interact with members of
their own species and with organisms of other species in many
different ways. They will know that these interactions are
sometimes helpful and sometimes harmful.

2. Students will be able to identify abiotic factors that limit the
number and types of organisms that can live in an ecosystem.
They will be able to describe the affect that too much or too
little of a resource can have on an organism.

3. Students will know that the different types (species) of
organisms in an ecosystem is affected by different factors such
as competition, availability of resources (such as food), type of
habitat, ability of organisms to find food, human interaction,
and the presence of predators.

4. Students will know that energy from the sun enters ecosystems
through producers and is then transferred through consumers,
decomposers and scavengers.

5. Students will be able to identify consumers, decomposers and
scavengers within the populations of a Missouri ecosystem.

Skills (Strand 7 Scientific Inquiry):



Assessment Evidence:

Student examples of how abiotic factors affect living things in
Interactions packet.
Student examples of how living things interact with each other in
Interactions packet.
Student answers on How Energy Moves in a Missouri Ecosystem
Presentation of research/ results from Bird Diversity Inquiry

Learning Activities:

Interactions of Organisms with Each Other and Their Environment

In this activity, I will first model different examples of how nonliving
factors (ex. water) affect organisms in Missouri. Students will then
use Missouri Conservationist magazines to identify 2 different examples
of how a nonliving thing could affect a living thing. For the second
part of the activity I will model different interations between living
things (ex. predation). Students will then use the magazines to find 2
different examples of that interaction that occur in Missouri.

How Energy Moves in a Missouri Ecosystem

In this activity students will take their examples collected in the
Interactions poster and apply them to the concept map. They will
identify which organism from their examples is a producer, which is a
1st level consumer, which is a 2nd level consumer, and which is a 3rd
or top level consumer. They will also identify some common
decomposers. Between each organism they will describe how energy
moves from one organism to the next.

Bird Diversity Inquiry Investigation (see next page)