Ecology

Day One o Introduction to Ecology Begin with bell-ringer activity to acknowledge students prior knowledge and current understanding of basic ecological terms and ideas. As a class, discuss answers to bell-ringer activity including a lecture over section 3.1 (pp. 64-68) Day Two o Lab: How Wet is our Planet (see appendix I) o Assignment: Lab report due 9/14 Day Three o Students will complete sections 3.2-3.3 (pp. 66-78) on an anticipation guide (see appendix II) Directions are stated on the worksheet. Students can work in pairs if they desire. Day Four o Food web activity. Students will cut a paste pictures of organisms that occupy various trophic levels in a food web. Finished products must show flow of energy, contain labels (producer, consumer, herbivore, carnivore, omnivore, and scavenger). Directions will be given directly in class. Day Five o Organisms in Ecology Learning Survey (see appendix III). o When finished with learning survey, students will have opportunity to go to computer lab and work on lab report, finish incomplete food web activity or move onto next section (4.1). o Assignment: Lab report due Monday 9/14 Day Six o Lab reports due! o Anticipation guide over sections 4.1-4.2 (pp. 96-104). Day Seven o Direct lecture over primary and secondary succession. o I will also use this day to help students with questions on the previous sections. Day Eight o Lab: Biome Exercise Students will create posters including biotic and abiotic factors and temperature-precipitation graphs of an assigned biome. Day Nine o Review day. Students will have option to review independently or participate in vocabulary jeopardy. Day Ten o Exam Day over chapters 3 & 4.

Day Eleven o Introduce chapter 5 Short introductory lecture Students then complete anticipation guide Day Twelve o Limiting factors Density independent vs. density dependent Spend time making sure students know the different and can identify examples of each. Finish the day with an exit slip asking for examples of each. Day Thirteen o Human population growth Exponential vs. logistic Age structure o Students will work in teams to design posters showing age structure diagrams of different countries or populations Day Fourteen o Students will continue to work on their posters and will finish before the class is over. o When finished, students will begin an anticipation guide over section 6.1. Day Fifteen o Fire drill, class interrupted Day Sixteen o Lecture over sections 6.1 and 6.2, some students will have already completed section 6.1 Emphasis on biological magnification and water use. Relate Nebraskas agriculture to pollution. Ask the students how we pollute the water, air and soil through farming. o Announce there is a test on Friday (Day 20). Day Seventeen o Jigsaw activity with Scientific American article (see appendix IV) Day Eighteen o Biodiversity and ecological footprint lecture o Students will complete anticipation guide over 6.3 o Exit Slip: students will write about a paragraph on how they can reduce their ecological footprint Day Nineteen o Review day Day Twenty o Exam over chapters 5 & 6.