Unit Overview – Ecology

The big picture stuff: ‍Students‍ extend their study of ecology (ecosystems in grade 6) to include human activities and their impacts on the environment.

Next Generation Science Standards – Middle School (NGSS-MS):

ESS3-3. Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.

Examples: examine human environmental impacts, assess the kinds of solutions that are feasible, and design and evaluate solutions that could reduce that impact. Examples of human impacts can include water usage (such as the withdrawal of water from streams and aquifers or the construction of dams and levees), land usage (such as urban development, agriculture, or the removal of wetlands), and pollution (such as of the air, water, or land).]

Core ideas: Human activities have significantly altered the biosphere, sometimes damaging or destroying natural habitats and causing the extinction of other species. But changes to Earth’s environments can have different impacts (negative and positive) for different living things.

ESS3-4. Construct an argument supported by evidence for how increases in human population and per-capita consumption of natural resources impact Earth’s systems.Examples: grade-appropriate databases on human populations and the rates of consumption of food and natural resources (such as freshwater, mineral, and energy). Examples of impacts can include changes to the appearance, composition, and structure of Earth’s systems as well as the rates at which they change. The consequences of increases in human populations and consumption of natural resources are described by science, but science does not make the decisions for the actions society takes.

Core ideas: Typically as human populations and per-capita consumption of natural resources increase, so do the negative impacts on Earth unless the activities and technologies involved are engineered otherwise.

ESS3-5. Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century.

Examples: human activities (such as fossil fuel combustion, cement production, and agricultural activity) and natural processes (such as changes in incoming solar radiation or volcanic activity). Examples of evidence can include tables, graphs, and maps of global and regional temperatures, atmospheric levels of gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, and the rates of human activities.

Emphasize: the major role that human activities play in causing the rise in global temperatures.

Core ideas: Human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth’s mean surface temperature (global warming). Reducing the level of climate change and reducing human vulnerability to whatever climate changes do occur depend on the understanding of climate science, engineering capabilities, and other kinds of knowledge, such as understanding of human behavior and on applying that knowledge wisely in decisions and activities.

Science and Engineering:

• Ask questions to identify and clarify evidence of an argument.
• Analyze and interpret data to determine similarities and differences in findings.
• Apply scientific principles to design an object, tool, process or system.
• Construct an oral and written argument supported by empirical evidence and scientific reasoning to support or refute an explanation or a model for a phenomenon or a solution to a problem.

Crosscutting concepts:

• Cause and effect relationships may be used to predict phenomena in natural or designed systems.
• Stability might be disturbed either by sudden events or gradual changes that accumulate over time.
• All human activity draws on natural resources and has both short and long-term consequences, positive as well as negative, for the health of people and the natural environment.
• The uses of technologies and any limitations on their use are driven by individual or societal needs, desires, and values; by the findings of scientific research; and by differences in such factors as climate, natural resources, and economic conditions. Thus technology use varies from region to region and over time.
• Science knowledge can describe consequences of actions but does not make the decisions that society takes.

California Science Standards:

5e. Students know how to determine whether a solution is acidic, basic, or neutral.

6a. Students know that carbon, because of its ability to combine in many ways with itself and other elements, has a central role in the chemistry of living organisms.

Investigation and Experimentation Standards:

a. Plan and conduct a scientific investigation to test a hypothesis.

b. Evaluate the accuracy and reproducibility of data.