Standards

• SC.912.L.17.9 Use a food web to identify and distinguish producers, consumers, and decomposers. Explain the pathway of energy transfer through trophic levels and the reduction of available energy at successive trophic levels. 

• describe the energy pathways through the different trophic levels of a food web or energy pyramid. 

• requires application of the knowledge of roles of organisms in a food web to describe energy pathways rather than the identification of producers, consumers (primary, secondary, tertiary), and decomposers. 

• SC.912.E.7.1 Analyze the movement of matter and energy through the different biogeochemical cycles, including water and carbon. 

• SC.912.L.17.2 Explain the general distribution of life in aquatic systems as a function of chemistry, geography, light, depth, salinity, and temperature. 

• chemical factors in aquatic systems are limited to pH, oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, phosphorus, and salinity. 

• geography in aquatic systems are limited to water depth, latitude, temperature, underwater topography, and proximity to land. 

• SC.912.L.17.5 Analyze how population size is determined by births, deaths, immigration, emigration, and limiting factors (biotic and abiotic) that determine carrying capacity. 

• use data and information about population dynamics, abiotic factors, and/or biotic factors to explain and/or analyze a change in carrying capacity and its effect on population size in an ecosystem. 

• assess the reliability of sources of information according to scientific standards.    

• SC.912.L.17.4 Describe changes in ecosystems resulting from seasonal variations, climate change and succession. 

• SC.912.L.17.20 Predict the impact of individuals on environmental systems and examine how human lifestyles affect sustainability. 

• predict how the actions of humans may impact environmental systems and/or affect sustainability. 

• evaluate possible environmental impacts resulting from the use of renewable and/or nonrenewable resources. 

• identify ways in which a scientific claim is evaluated (e.g., through scientific argumentation, critical and logical thinking, and/or consideration of alternative explanations). 

• SC.912.L.17.8 Recognize the consequences of the losses of biodiversity due to catastrophic events, climate changes, human activity, and the introduction of invasive, non-native species. 

• examples of catastrophic events, climate changes, human activities, and the introduction of invasive and non native species 

• SC.912.L.17.11 Evaluate the costs and benefits of renewable and nonrenewable resources, such as water, energy, fossil fuels, wildlife, and forests 

• SC.912.L.17.13 Discuss the need for adequate monitoring of environmental parameters when making policy decisions. 

Vocabulary

1. Abiotic - Nonliving

2. Aquatic - Relating to water

3. Autotroph - Auto = Self. Create their own food

4. Biodiversity - Diversity of living creatures in a given location

5. Biogeochemical Cycle - Movement of nutrients as they are recycled through the planet

6. Biosphere - Global ecosystem where everything on the planet lives

7. Biotic - Living

8. Carbon Cycle - Recycling of Carbon through the atmosphere and planet

9. Carnivore - Have to eat other animals for energy

10. Carrying Capacity - The number of individuals a space can support without damaging it

11. Climate Change - Long term shifts in the globes temperature and weather patterns

12. Community - multiple species in the same location

13. Consumer - must eat to gain energy

14. Decomposer - break down dead material

15. Deforestation - removing forests of trees for lumber or farmland

16. Ecological Succession - How species and the habitat change over time

17. Ecology - Study of relationships of species and their environment

18. Ecosystem - Area where plants, animals, weather and landscapes interact

19. Food Chain - The transfer of energy of a small subset of organisms in an ecosystem

20. Food Web - The transfer of energy of multiple food chains in an ecosystem

21. Fossil Fuels - natural fuel made from past living organisms

22. Herbivore - Animals that consume plants for their energy

23. Heterotroph - Do not create their own energy thus must eat others to obtain it

24. Invasive Species - Transplanted species, non-native to an ecosystem

25. Limiting Factors - Something that limits the population size by slowing or stopping its growth

26. Nonrenewable Resources - Resource that does not recycle naturally or at all

27. Omnivore - Eat anything, living/dead, plant/animal

28. Pollution - harmful materials introduced to the environment 

29. Population - Number of a given species in a specific ecosystem

30. Primary Consumer - herbivores, eat producers

31. Primary Producer - plants, create energy from the sun

32. Primary Succession - created when a space is created or exposed for the first time

33. Producer - plants, produce their own energy

34. Renewable Resources - recyclable material like water and carbon

35. Secondary Consumer - carnivores, eat primary consumers

36. Secondary Succession - a previously occupied area is recolonized after a disturbance that killed off the previous community

37. Sustainability - how a system stays diverse and productive by keeping in balance

38. Terrestrial - land-based

39. Tertiary Consumer - carnivores, eat secondary consumers

40. Trophic Level - level a species occupies in the food chain

41. Water Cycle - Hydrolytic Cycle, the recycling of water through the biosphere