Biodiversity
Grade Level: 7th
Subject: Science
Time Frame: 8 weeks (April/May)
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Essential Questions
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- How do matter and energy flow in and through the biosphere?
- how do life and the earth's climate interact?
- what factors shape changes in our biosphere, our ecosystems and our populations?
- why do some populations increase in size while others go extinct?
- how are humans impacting the biosphere?
- how has the planet changed over its history?
- how long has it taken for our planet's ecosystems to look the way they do now?
- what were the ideas and observations that led to the concept of biological evolution?
- how does natural selection work?
- where did Earth's biodiversity come from?
- what evidence exists to support the idea that all life on Earth had a common ancestor?
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By the end of the unit, students will know:
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- ecologists study the biosphere
- the biosphere uses and transform energy to drive the processes of life
- biotic and abiotic factors impact ecosystems
- energy flows through Earth's biosphere
- to identify the levels of organization of living systems
- to provide evidence for biological evolution
- to identify types of community interactions
- to describe the human population growth curve and connect human population growth to changes in the biosphere
- to identify ecological disturbances and make predictions about their impacts on ecosystems
- the theory of biological evolution emerged
- the biosphere, ecosystems and populations change over time
- natural selection works on variations in populations
- the earth's biodiversity is unified by a common ancestor
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By the end of the unit, students will be able to:
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- describe and diagram the one-way flow of energy through the biosphere
- diagram the recycling of matter between producers, consumers, decomposers and the environment
- diagram changes in population size as a function of limiting factors
- analyze graphs of population dynamics
- graph the exponential growth function
- analyze climate data graphs
- analyze a timeline showing deep time
- use mathematical concepts to show that populations' traits change over time
- analyze embryo diagrams for anatomical similarities
- analyze skeleton diagrams for anatomical similarities
- analyze amino acid sequence data for evidence of change over time
- design solutions to ecological or environmental problems
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Chapter: Biodiversity
# of Days: 2
Topics:
- introduction to biodiversity
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Chapter: Introduction to Ecology
# of Days: 4
Topics:
- ecology
- biotic vs. abiotic
- Earth as an open/closed system
- what do ecologists do?
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Chapter: Ecosystems
# of Days: 9
Topics:
- energy flow
- food chains
- food webs
- nutrient cycles
- building food webs
- energy pyramids
- community interactions
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Chapter: Populations
# of Days: 8
Topics:
- population size
- carrying capacity
- predator-prey interactions
- human population growth
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Chapter: Sources of Biodiversity- change over time
# of Days: 11
Topics:
- biosphere changes over time
- timeline of earth
- ecosystems change over time
- populations change over time
- Charles Darwin
- natural selection
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Chapter: Maintaining Biodiversity
# of Days: 4
Topics:
- real world biodiversity
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Standards
MS-LS2-3; MS-LS2-2; MS-LS2-1; MS-LS2.B; MS-LS2-4; MS-LS4.B; MS-LS.C; MS-LS4-1; MS-LS4-2; MS-LS4-2; MS-LS4-3; MS-LS4-4; MS-LS4-6; MS-LS2-5; MS-ESS3-3; MS-ETS1-1; MS-ESS3-4