Science 1: Associate degree in Education - Lecture 4: Populations and Ecosystems (Cont)

Lecture # 4 SCIENCE 1 ASSOCIATE DEGREE IN EDUCATION POPULATIONS AND ECOSYSTEMS Continue..DEBRIEFING OF THE HANDS-ON INQUIRY ACTIVITY Ask each group to report their findings from their patch of land. You might want to gather all their findings on a flip chart or board. This will provide the class with a complete overview of what was found in the larger patch of land. Have Students discuss the methods that different groups used, discuss the commonalities and differences of their findings, and explain how they might group their observations. Continue to encourage rather than evaluate or correct. If applicable, discuss strengths and weaknesses of different groups’ methods. DEBRIEFING OF THE HANDS-ON INQUIRY ACTIVITY Continue.. Have the Students do most of the talking rather than having them wait for you to tell them. Science doesn’t have the answer to everything, and the science process is ongoing. Invite them to learn how to engage in the process. They begin by exploring, drawing conclusions, and having scientific discussions with one another rather than just learning facts. DEBRIEFING OF THE HANDS-ON INQUIRY ACTIVITY Continue.. As a second step, have Students categorize all their findings, for instance, by grouping them into living (biotic) and nonliving (abiotic) things found in their plot. Have them summarize their findings by answering the following questions: What did you find most often? What were rare cases? How many species did you find? Perhaps provide Students with resources that will help them classify their findings. DEBRIEFING OF THE HANDS-ON INQUIRY ACTIVITY Continue.. End this session by introducing Student Teachers to the concept of ecological niches. Explain how niches help increase diversity within an ecosystem. Discuss the interrelationships and how to maximize the number of populations that can live in the same ecosystem. At this point, you might want to expand the discussion from the plot of land that they explored to any other niche or ecosystem that they can think of. Take them from a local, shared experience and discuss more global ‘species-rich’ ecosystems. For example, you could discuss the rainforest and contrast it to scarcer ecosystems found in harsher places, such as at a high altitude, in the deserts, in the deep oceans, and so on. Have Student Teachers work in pairs for this exercise. Have them identify conditions that lead to highly diversified ecosystems and conditions that are not so favorable to survival.CONCLUSION AND TRANSFER: AN IMAGINARY ECOSYSTEMIn this final session of the week, ask Students to create a concept map of an imaginary ecosystem in some area of Pakistan. Have them work in pairs to map out all the species of that ecosystem that they would like to include (considering flora and fauna). Tell them to list all biotic and abiotic factors that play a role. Also, tell them to start small by picking a small area and just one species (for instance, a mammal). Then they can start creating all the interactions this species has with all the other organisms that live in that ecosystem. Make sure Students do not forget the abiotic factors. If they struggle with this open-ended assignment, discuss some simple food chains with them and then move on to food webs.CONCLUSION AND TRANSFER: AN IMAGINARY ECOSYSTEM Continue .Next step is to have Students introduce an event that causes a change in the ecosystem (it can be a small change, such as a milder than usual winter, or a catastrophic one, such as a fire). Have them answer the following questions: How does this event affect the dynamic equilibrium of the ecosystem in the short and long term? What are the consequences? What could be corrective measures (human or natural) that would help the ecosystem return to its dynamic equilibrium? Students need to hypothesize here, but tell them to be prepared to explain their reasoning. CONCLUSION AND TRANSFER: AN IMAGINARY ECOSYSTEM Continue .Even when an event or a change causes damage to an ecosystem, it can often recover over time to a system that was similar to the original one. However, certain major disasters can cause such damage to an ecosystem that it cannot recover. Human activity, in particular, can alter the biotic and abiotic components, resulting in major changes to the overall system. These changes often affect the biodiversity of the ecosystem, especially, but not always, when the food web is disrupted. The design of a model ecosystem requires Students to apply the understandings that they identified this week. These include the resources needed to maintain life and the interrelationships among biotic and abiotic factors within ecosystems. They should also show an understanding of how water, oxygen, and carbon dioxide support life in an ecosystem based on prior knowledge from their schooling.CONCLUSION AND TRANSFER: AN IMAGINARY ECOSYSTEM Continue .This activity will end the second week. In the third week, Students look closer at populations within an ecosystem. They will identify how those populations naturally increase and decrease as they respond to factors that limit or support growth. This will provide an opportunity to create and use data charts and construct graphs. These are also essential skills for all science teachers. As Students explore the effects of natural and man-made changes to ecosystems, they will rely on their earlier experiences of analyzing how events in one part of an ecosystem can affect the entire ecosystem. Provided that there is time, you might want to analyze more complex patterns affecting population change at the end of next week.