Animal Migrations and Their Ecosystems

Learning Resource Type

Classroom Resource

Subject Area

Science

Grade(s)

7

Overview

Students engage with a variety of resources to learn about ecosystems and the interactions among organisms in ecosystems, with a focus on elk migration in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Groups create a second map layer for their unit project that shows how their focal animal’s migration impacts its ecosystem. This lesson is part of the Detours and Distractions: How Humans Impact Migration Patterns unit.

Science (2015) Grade(s): 7

SC15.7.6

Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence regarding how resource availability impacts individual organisms as well as populations of organisms within an ecosystem.

UP:SC15.7.6

Vocabulary

  • Analyze
  • Interpret
  • Evidence
  • Resource(s)
  • Organism(s)
  • Ecosystem
  • Biotic
  • Abiotic
  • Populations (e.g., sizes, reproduction rates, growth information)
  • Competition

Knowledge

Students know:
  • Organisms, and populations of organisms, are dependent on their environmental interactions both with other living (biotic) things and with nonliving (abiotic) things.
  • In any ecosystem, organisms and populations with similar requirements for food, water, oxygen, or other resources may compete with each other for limited resources, access to which consequently constrains their growth and reproduction.
  • Growth of organisms and population increases are limited by access to resources.

Skills

Students are able to:
  • Organize the given data to allow for analysis and interpretation of relationships between resource availability and organisms in an ecosystem.
  • Analyze the organized data to determine the relationships between the size of a population, the growth and survival of individual organisms, and resource availability.
  • Determine whether the relationships provide evidence of a causal link between factors.
  • Interpret the organized data to make predictions based on evidence of causal relationships between resource availability, organisms, and organism populations.

Understanding

Students understand that:
  • Cause and effect relationships may be used to predict phenomena in natural or designed systems.
  • Causal links exist between resources and growth of individual organisms and the numbers of organisms in ecosystems during periods of abundant and scarce resources.

Scientific and Engineering Practices

Analyzing and Interpreting Data

Crosscutting Concepts

Cause and Effect
Science (2015) Grade(s): 7

SC15.7.8

Construct an explanation to predict patterns of interactions in different ecosystems in terms of the relationships between and among organisms (e.g., competition, predation, mutualism, commensalism, parasitism).

UP:SC15.7.8

Vocabulary

  • Interactions
  • Evidence
  • Reasoning
  • Quantitative
  • Qualitative
  • Patterns
  • Ecosystems
  • Relationships
  • Competition
  • Predation
  • Mutualism
  • Commensalism
  • Parasitism

Knowledge

Students know:
  • Competitive relationships occur when organisms within an ecosystem compete for shared resources.
  • Predatory interactions occur between organisms within an ecosystem.
  • Mutually beneficial interactions occur between organisms within an ecosystem; some organisms are so dependent upon one another that they can not survive alone.
  • Resource availability affects interactions between organisms (e.g., limited resources may cause competitive relationships among organisms; those same organisms may not be in competition where resources are in abundance).
  • Competitive, predatory, and mutually beneficial interactions occur across multiple, different ecosystems.

Skills

Students are able to:
  • Articulate a statement that relates a given phenomenon to a scientific idea, including that similar patterns of interactions occur between organisms and their environment, regardless of the ecosystem or the species involved.
  • Use multiple valid and reliable sources of evidence to construct an explanation for the given phenomenon.
  • Identify and describe quantitative or qualitative patterns of interactions among organisms that can be used to identify causal relationships within ecosystems, related to the given phenomenon.
  • Describe that regardless of the ecosystem or species involved, the patterns of interactions are similar.
  • Use reasoning to connect the evidence and support an explanation using patterns in the evidence to predict common interactions among organisms in ecosystems as they relate to the phenomenon.

Understanding

Students understand that:
  • Although the species involved in relationships (e.g., competition, predation, mutualism, commensalism, parasitism) vary across ecosystems, the patterns of interactions of organisms with their environments, both living and nonliving, are shared.

Scientific and Engineering Practices

Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions

Crosscutting Concepts

Patterns

CR Resource Type

Lesson/Unit Plan

Resource Provider

National Geographic

License Type

Custom
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/lesson/animal-migrations-and-their-ecosystem…

Custom License Type (URL)

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/terms-of-service/

Approved Date

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