Unpacked Content
Scientific and Engineering Practices
Developing and Using Models
Crosscutting Concepts
Scale, Proportion, and Quantity
Knowledge
Students know:
- The carrying capacity of an ecosystem results from such factors as availability of living and nonliving resources and from such challenges as predation, competition, and disease.
- Anthropogenic changes in the environment, including habitat destruction, pollution, introduction of invasive species, overexploitation, and climate change, can disrupt an ecosystem and threaten the survival of some species.
- Examples of mathematical representations include finding the average, determining trends, and using graphical comparisons of multiple sets of data.
- The difference between density-dependent and density-independent limiting factors, examples of each, and how each affects populations and biodiversity within an ecosystem.
Skills
Students are able to:
- Differentiate between constant and exponential growth.
- Use graphs to compare multiple sets of data.
- Determine trends in data sets.
- Use a variety of graphs and charts, including: (e.g., scatterplots, tables, line graphs, bar graphs, histograms) to evaluate the impact of factors on populations and biodiversity.
- Utilize interpolation, extrapolation and statistical analyses to determine relationships between biodiversity and population numbers.
- Make inferences and justify conclusions from sample surveys, experiments, and observational studies. (ALCOS Mathematics S-IC)
- Choose a scale and the origins in graphs (ALCOS Mathematics ALGI. 4.2) in order to accurately compare graphical data.
- Determine an appropriate graphic model to display relationships comparing populations by biodiversity.
- Describe how factors affecting ecosystems at one scale can cause observable changes in ecosystems at a different scale.
Understanding
Students understand that:
- The number of populations in a given area reflects the biodiversity of that area.
- Ecosystems can exist in the same location on a variety of scales, and these populations can interact in ways that may, or may not, significantly alter the ecosystems.
- Using the concept of orders of magnitude, a model at one scale relates to a model at another scale.
Vocabulary
- interpolation
- extrapolation
- anthropogenic
- limiting factors
- biodiversity index
- species richness
- species evenness
- population
- graphic models
- population pyramid
- doubling time
- growth rate
- slope
- exponential growth
- population curve
- logistic growth model
- linear growth model
- constant growth
- density-dependent limiting factors
- density-independent limiting factors
- carrying capacity
- Biodiversity Treaty
- demographic transition
- correlation
- endangered species
- extinction
- survivorship
- sustainability
- population properties
- density and dispersion
- reproductive potential
