Interactions and Ecosystems
On this page is all the information you might need to support your learning in this unit. At the top of the page will be helpful links to things like Google Presentations, e-textbooks, vocabulary, YouTube videos and screencasts. Below are pictures of our Interactive Notebook for our combined unit of Interactions and Ecosystems and Plants for Food and Fiber. If there is something you would like to see here, let me know!
Here are links to presentations we use in class to help you:
Links to articles/Websites we may discuss in class:
Assignment & Activities
Assessment:
Student friendly language Learning Outcomes
Ecosystems and Plants Combined Assessment Outcome Sheet
Ecosystems and Plants Combined Assessment Teacher Feedback Form
Interactive Notebook:
We will be creating interactive notebooks (INBs) throughout Science 7 this year. You may be responsible for cutting & pasting components for the next day's notes into your book before next class. You can do so at home or at school during lunch, breaks or after school but they must be complete prior to the next class.
Blank templates for your INB can be found in the INB Templates folder listed at the top of this page. If templates have come from other sources, I have cited them and will provide a link to TPT store to purchase.
Pictures below can guide you in organizing your INB if you miss classes but keep in mind work that is to be completed by you, as an 'output' will not be shown. You can always talk with me or with your fellow students about what might be included for those.
Introduction / Biotic & Abiotic Factors:
Students watch Planet Earth Pole to Pole to get an overview and introduction to different types of ecosystems and the organisms that interact in them.
After discussing the definitions of biotic and abiotic, students sketch one of the ecosystems they viewed in the film and categorize factors as biotic and abiotic from that ecosystem.
This is the home page for several important terms in our unit. We complete these as a class as we learn about them in different ways.
Basic Needs & Adaptations:
On the right we took some visual notes, in sections, to learn about how plants, animals and microorganisms meet their basic needs. Because meeting these needs depends largely on the processes of diffusion and osmosis, our output page to the left included information from several lab activities:
simple diffusion in hot and cold water
osmosis of coloured water through celery and flowers
leaf chromatography using leaves we collected from a nearby wooded area
Symbiotic Relationships
We learned about the definitions of different symbiotic relationships and then students classified various examples that we found from several different video clips.
Microcosmos & Basic Needs Assignment:
Prior to our first assignment, students watched the film Microcosmos, which is a fantastic view into the life of many smaller creatures.
The basic needs and adaptations assignment can be found above.
Energy, Food Chains and Food Webs in an Ecosystem
What is the difference between a food chain and a food web? How does energy flow through various ecosystems?
These questions are explored in this section and conclude with the Owl Pellet Dissection Lab and Owl Pellet Food Web Reconstruction.
Food chain foldable and food web flip book modified from Kesler Science.
The beginning of our discussion on how humans impact ecosystems. How have we impacted the soil by our agriculture practices.
Connects to topics in Plants for Food and Fiber.
To summarize our combined unit for Interactions and Ecosystems and Plants for Food and Fibre, we discuss overall impacts humans can have on the ecosystems.