Human Impact on the Environment

While studying ecology, students will become familiar with different types of ecosystems such as tundra, grassland, desert, savannah, etc. Students will be asked to create a food web of 5 organisms within one ecosystem of their choosing.

Within each food web, students must have a consumer, producer, and decomposer. 

Revisit the terms abiotic, biotic, and limiting factor 

These terms describe the kinds of things that influence change within ecosystems. These changes may be for the better or for the worse. 

Once the food webs are created, a question is posed:

How would the addition of humans to these areas affect how the energy flows through the ecosystem?

Students will create a T-chart of positive and negative ways that the addition of humans will affect their chosen ecosystem. 

Results will be shared and discussed as a class

Try to create parallels between the factors affecting their chosen ecosystems with our ecosystem

For homework, students will be asked to think about our ecosystem and the effect humans have on it. What are the ways we can ease these impacts? 

MS.LS2.4: Ecosystem Interactions and Dynamics

Construct an argument supported by empirical evidence that changes to physical or biological components of an ecosystem affect populations. (Stability and Change)

MS.LS2.2: Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems

Construct an explanation that predicts patterns of interactions among organisms across multiple ecosystems.

I really like this activity because it gives the students some time to revisit what kinds of animals are in what ecosystems, allows them to have a choice of what kind of environment they want to focus on, allows them to gather pertinent information on their own and leaves time for us to reconnect as a group and make connections to our own ecosystem. Students nowadays are highly aware of human impact on the environment resulting in high engagement throughout the period, allowing us to get a lot of work done.