• Populations and Ecosystems - Semester 2

     

    The Populations and Ecosystems Course explores ecosystems as the largest organizational unit of life on Earth, defined by its physical environment and the organisms that live in the physical environment. Students learn that every organism has a role to play in its ecosystem and has structures and behaviors that allow it to survive. Students raise populations of organisms to discover population dynamics and interactions over a range of conditions. They learn that food is the source of energy used by all life forms in all ecosystems to conduct life processes. Reproduction, including limiting factors, heredity and natural selection are explored as ways to understand both the similarity and the variation within and between species.

     

    Investigation 1: Milkweed Bugs

    Investigation 2: Sorting Out Life

    Investigation 3: Miniecosystems

    Investigation 4: Mono Lake

    Investigation 5: Finding the Energy

    Investigation 6: Population Size

    Investigation 7: Ecoscenarios

    Investigation 8: Adaptations

    Investigation 9: Genetic Variation

    Investigation 10: Natural Selection