Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems

Our first science unit is a life science unit, and it consists of two big ideas. The first focuses on how organisms interact with the living and nonliving environments to obtain matter and energy. The second big idea focuses on biodiversity and how humans affect and are affected by it.

Students will come to understand that:

Animals depend on their surroundings to get what they need, including food, water, shelter, and a favorable temperature. Animals depend on plants or other animals for food. They use their senses to find food and water, and they use their body parts to gather, catch, eat, and chew the food. Plants depend on air, water, minerals (in the soil), and light to grow. Animals can move around, but plants cannot, and they often depend on animals for pollination or to move their seeds around. Different plants survive better in different settings because they have varied needs for water, minerals, and sunlight. There are many different kinds of living things in any area, and they exist in different places on land and in water.

Check back to see how our thinking develops and / or changes as we work through this unit.

What We Think We Know

• There are a few people or animals.

• Some like forests may have a lot of plants, or a lot of snow like a tundra.

• Some are really big and some are kind of small.

• An ecosystem is a place where animals and plants live.

• Ecosystems are real places.

• The jungle is a place where animals live.

• The zoo has animals and plants.

• The mountains have a lot of plants and animals like deer.

• Denver has a lot of people, plants and animals.

• The Amazon Rainforest has a lot of plants and animals.

• Bugs can live there.

What We Want To Know

What We Learned