Unit 1: The Living World - Ecosystems

The ability to describe environmental processes and relationships within an environment is central to this unit. Students will practice this skill with visual representations and models, particularly those of biogeochemical cycles, food chains, food webs, and trophic diagrams. By the end of this unit, students should be able to sue visual representations to describe the individual steps of the hydrologic, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycles and then explain how each chemical ie either stored or transferred throughout its cycle. Students will also be able to predict the effects of a change in one or more parts of a given cycle, including impacts to humans and the ecosystem at large.

In this unit, students will also develop a foundational understanding of biomes and describe how relationships between organisms are affected by environmental conditions. They should develop the quantitative skills to calculate the decrease of energy as it passes through ecosystems and then explain the transfer of energy through ecosystems.

One the AP Exam, students will apply environmental concepts and processes in real-world situations. This starts with the ability to identify and describe the biogeochemical cycles and then predict the effects of a change within a cycle. For example, although students can identify biogeochemical cycles, they often struggle to describe each of the steps. Students also struggle to identify the reservoir portion of the cycle (the step that takes the longest to complete). To combat these challenges, students will create visual representations of biogeochemical cycles and use them to organize pertinent information. Students will also write step-by-step descriptions of the cycles, including characteristics and attributes.