Life in the Marine Ecosystem: Up Close and Personal
Post-site Activities/Teacher Led
Grade Level: 5
Content
Area: Science
Time to Complete: 30
minutes
Title of Lesson: Life
in the Marine Ecosystem: Up Close and
Personal
South Carolina State Standards
Addressed:
|
II.B.1.a. |
Define a population. |
|
II.B.1.b. |
Investigate and
understand how plants
and animals in
aquatic/terrestrial
ecosystems interact with
one another and with the
non-living environment. |
|
II.B.2.a. |
Distinguish among the
roles organisms serve in
a food web (producers,
decomposers, consumers). |
|
II.B.2.b. |
Describe an organism by
its niche in an
ecosystem. |
|
II.B.3.a. |
Recognize that energy
passes from organism to
organism in food webs. |
|
II.B.3.b. |
Diagram how energy flows
through food webs. |
|
II.B.4.a. |
Identify and investigate
the abiotic factors in
an ecosystem such as
quantity of light, air,
and water; range of
temperature; salinity
and soil composition. |
|
II.B.4.c. |
Describe the effect of
limiting factors such as
food, water, space and
shelter on a population. |
|
II.B.4.d. |
Draw conclusions about
the influence of human
activity on ecosystems. |
Lesson Description:
The following activity was designed to
assess the students understanding of the
marine ecosystem.
Focus Question For Students:
|
1. |
Compare the importance of each
organism in the marine
environment. |
|
2. |
Discuss what could happen if a
specific organism is removed. |
|
3. |
Analyze the effects that would
occur in the salt marsh if one
of the abiotic (non-living)
components is changed or
removed. |
|
4. |
Discuss what can you, your
family and friends do to help
preserve the marine ecosystem. |
|
5.
|
Which organisms (producers or
consumers) would have the
greatest number of individuals
in a population? |
Teacher Preparation:
Complete steps in "Plan
Your Discovery", pre-site and on-site activities and return the
post-site materials with your evaluation form.
Materials:
|
|
Completed
lab sheet for field study at Huntington Beach State Park. |
Procedures:
|
1. |
The
students will take the list of organisms (lab sheet) they used in
the classroom and number the organisms in order of importance to the
ecosystem with 1 being the most important. |
|
2. |
Total the
numbers on the board of each student's decision. |
|
3. |
Discuss
how they came to the conclusion as to which was the most important
and which was the least important. |
|
4. |
The object
of the discussion is to determine that all of the components are
important. |
|
5. |
The
students will then be asked to use some of the organisms on the
P,D,C page and draw a food web and determine their niche. |
|
