Week 8

learning intentions

• recall prior learning of species and ecosystems

• investigate different ways of graphing biodiversity

success criteria

• remember and use key scientific vocabulary such as ecosystem, species, habitat, endangered species, genetic diversity, invasive species, food web, niche or adaptation, and many other words.

• To distinguish between species richness, abundance and evenness and to be able to graph all 3 given suitable data.

• To explain a reason why an ecologist might collect such data.

Tasks

Knowledge & understanding

1.  Watch & answer edpuzzle Bill Nye on biodiversity

2. Complete KWHL chart

 Investigation Skills

3. Group task: Graphing biodiversity on Bird Island

Literacy & research

4.  Comment on why we should measure biodiversity 

Investigation skills

Task 2: Investigating the birds on Bird Island (fictional)

A group of scientists recently returned from surveying Bird Island, a remote island in the Atlantic Ocean. This island is inhabited by people. The scientists identified six species of birds living on the island.

Here is a map they created after surveying the island. (Scientists recorded GPS coordinates for each of the bird populations they observed on the island).

Each population of birds is shown as a unique symbol on the map and indicates a sampling site.

1. What first steps would you need to take in order to compare and assess bird diversity on the island?

2. Looking at the map, how many ecoregions are on Bird Island? 

3. How could you compare one ecoregion to another?

   • Graph abundance of all species within individual ecoregions

Key vocabulary:

Species Richness: # species in a geographic area

Species Abundance: # individuals in a species within a defined area

Species Evenness: Extent to which # species is similar across multiple geographic areas

Divide into 6 groups - allocate ecoregions (A-F)

Using Google sheets, each group has to graph ALL the species in YOUR ecoregion

• bar chart or line graph?

• What is the Title? X & Y axis labels?

Post your graphs here:

Now graph the abundance of each species across all six ecoregions and post below.

i. Bigbird genssorci

ii. Roadrunner makinsteri

iii. Tweety trautmanni

iv. Hedwig bateki

v. Woodstock wilsoni

vi. Zazu seiradnoubi