Lesson 9

Would planting more rainforest fruit trees help the orangutan population increase?

Lesson Objectives...

Collect data from an investigation to draw conclusions about how stable populations of orangutans fluctuate over time based on resource availability.
Use mathematical representations to draw conclusions about trends in orangutan population sizes over time, depending upon resource availability.

Lesson 9 - Science Notebook - Ecosystem Dynamics Unit

Resources for Lesson 9...

7.5 Lesson 9 - Slides

Slide Presentation for Lesson 9...

This is the slide presentation used by your teachers when navigating through Lesson 9.

Simulation for Our Investigations...

Use the simulation to understand how different variables impact the survival of orangutans. Click on the image on the right or click HERE to get to the simulation.

Connecting Our Findings to Real Ecosystems...

7.5 Lesson 7 - Reference - Orangutans in Four Protected Areas in Indonesia

What we figured out this lesson...

It’s normal for population sizes to fluctuate (i.e., go up and down).
If there are a lot of resources available, population sizes go up. If the resources are limited, population sizes go down.
When there aren’t enough resources, orangutans have to compete for them, and some orangutans don’t get what they need to survive.
When an orangutan gets enough resources, it survives and reproduces.
If an orangutan can’t get what it needs, it may not reproduce. Over the years, that means that the population goes down as orangutans die and not enough are born to keep the population stable.
Minor disruptions in resource availability may lead to small fluctuations in population sizes, while major disruptions in resource availability may cause populations to increase or decrease drastically in number.
Running multiple trials on an experiment can provide more data to get more certainty about the conclusions being drawn from the data.

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