Ecosystems Curriculum
This section addresses students' tendency to focus on direct effects to the exclusion of indirect effects. It introduces domino causality to help students detect indirect effects of ecosystem events. It reveals that the transfer of energy in a food web is domino-like. This section engages students in a game and related discussion to help them understand that the transfer of energy in a food web is domino-like.
Section 1: Understanding Goals
Subject Matter
- An ecosystem is a combination of living things in a community and the non-living things in the physical environment surrounding them (biotic and abiotic factors).
- Different organisms in ecosystems need certain things to survive, such as water, air, soil, food and sun.
- Organisms in an ecosystem can be put into three categories: producers, consumers and decomposers.
- There is interconnectedness in an ecosystem, and changes in one population in an ecosystem may cause changes in other populations in that ecosystem.
Causality
- Causes can have direct and indirect effects.
- Causes can have far-reaching effects.
- A seemingly small precipitating cause can have extensive effects.
- In a system, isolated effects are uncommon.
- Effects often appear to propagate in domino-like patterns including ones that branch or radiate out.
