Look here for possible lesson updates - https://thewonderofscience.com/standards
Unit Guide - Ecology and Interactions
Unit Question - What are the negative impacts and positive solutions that humans have within ecosystems?
Lesson 1 - Food Chains - Owl Pellets - Sep 4
Buy Spinach for Lesson 6
Lesson 2 - Start the Competition Experiment - Sep 5
Lesson 3 - What are ecosystems? - Sep 8
Lesson 4 - Food Chains and Populations - computer model - Sep 9 (teacher coverage at 3:00 on for a meeting)
Lesson 4a- Roly Poly Experiment - Sep 10 and 11 See Taxonomy lesson below and use this to talk about interactions, behavior, niche, decomposers, etc.
Lesson 5 - Energy Flow in an Ecosystem - Sep 12
Lesson 7 - Make a Food Web - Sep 15
Lesson 6 - Carbon Cycle and Photosynthesis (with Spinach - 2 days) - Sep 16 and 17
Lesson 8 - Measuring Populations in an Ecosystem - Sep 18
Lesson 9 - Taxonomy and lab conclusion (Day 2) - Sep 19 (Check with Brenna about the Taxonomy Cards - possibly more inquiry based)
Add - Approaches to Learning Check In
Look at your ATL Skill choice on the Unit Guide - Ecology and Interactions
Thumbs up or down with how it is going.
Share with your group how you are doing with your goal.
Lesson 11 - Preserving Nature Locally - Sep 22 (modify to be more about a biodiversity comparison)
Lesson 12 - CO Wolf Project - Biodiversity - Sep 23 and 24 (modify to 1 day for ELD section - 2 days for other Bio)
Lesson 13 - Unit Test and Notebook Check - Sep 25
Ecology Part 2 - Human Impacts on Nature (3 sub lessons if needed)
Lesson 14 - Humans and Climate Change - Sub Lesson - Oct 2 (2 days for ELD Bio - 1 day otherwise)
Lesson 13 - Land Use Adaptations and Solutions - Sub Lesson Video Wild Ways - Oct 3 (sub day 2025)
Lesson 15 - Humans Balancing Use of Nature - Sub Lesson - Oct 6
Been absent? - Make up lab design work from a missed experiment.
Extra Lesson
Lesson 16 - Pathway Challenge Experiment - Keeping cool -
Reflection - It is the end of the semester. Take some time to write a message to yourself. Write a few sentences about each topic.
Explain something that is going well for you in this class this semester.
Tell yourself at least one thing that you will improve this semester (focus, work completion, getting to class, etc.). How will you do that?
Give yourself one piece of advice on how to overcome a challenge when that thing becomes difficult. Why will that work for you?
Reflection Lesson - Applying Engineering and biology solutions - Dec 14
Extra - sub lesson if needed
Planet Earth - Analyze an Ecosystem - Living and Non-living. Highlight species interactions. Temp, rainfall, etc.
Plastic Paradise - Pollutions impacts on living things. Video - Plastic Paradise - You will watch a video called Plastic Paradise - I want you to watch for how this narrator takes a personal issue and dives deeper into her understanding of the problem?
Student Video Guide - Nature: The Sagebrush Sea (DVD 598 Sag) (print) - How are humans impacting our local mountain regions? What are possible solutions to these human caused problems?
Colorado Science Standard
Life Sci -
3. Organisms use matter and energy to live and grow. (Photosynthesis)
4. Organisms interact with the living and nonliving components of the environment to obtain matter and energy.
5. Matter and energy necessary for life are conserved as they move through ecosystems.
6. A complex set of interactions determine how ecosystems respond to disturbances.