Nicholas Orem Middle School's Wildlife Habitat

by Tiphanie Scroggins

 

Objectives:

 

Background Information:

This unit was designed as way for students to observe and understand the many facets of an ecosystem through the school's courtyard wildlife habitat.

Purpose:

What is an ecosystem and how does it operate?

ACTIVITY 1- "Knock, Knock , Who lives here?"

Engagement:

Students will be blindfolded and led in a single file line outside into the school's courtyard. They will be positioned in different locations and asked several questions.

  1. What do you hear?
  2. What do you smell?
  3. What do you feel?
  4. Where are we?

Now remove the blindfolds,

  1. What do you see?
  2. What is living, what is non-living?
  3. Do the living organisms need the non-living things to survive?

 

Exploration:

Students will be divided into five investigative groups. One group for each of the Five Kingdoms, Animal, Fungi, Monera, Plant and Protista. The assignment is for the students, within their groups, to look around the wildlife habitat for organisms in their prospective kingdoms. Teachers need to inform the students that when they are sampling from the habitat, to be cautious as to not destroy the ecosystem. Each group will collect organisms and tack them to our Five Kingdom board. All of the groups will not be able to collect organisms for their kingdoms, namely Monera and Protista. The students from these groups need to identify that the organisms from their kingdoms are microscopic and are unable to be collected to be tacked on the board. After which, show them pictures and have them to draw the organisms in their place.

  1. Name a distinguishing characteristic for each of the five kingdoms.
  2. Give an example of an organism from each kingdom from our wildlife habitat.
  3. Are the five Kingdoms represented in this habitat, which are? which are not?

 

Explanation:

Teacher should ask the students, what is the relationship between the engagement and the exploration activities? What is a Wildlife Habitat? Who or what lives in our wildlife habitat and is there inter-dependence within the habitat? Why were you taken to the habitat blindfolded and asked to use your senses?

 

Elaboration:

Teachers should have students read "Five Kingdoms Classification" from the Prince George's County Public School System's Performance Assessment Activity, "Life Under the Coverslip." Be sure to answer the questions that follow the reading.

 

Evaluate:

Students(within their investigative groups) will write a news report on the "Importance of a Wildlife Habitat." They must included information on who lives there as well as samples from the other kingdoms( one organism from each kingdom). They must also talk about the importance of their kingdom in the habitat.

Activity 2- "The Microbial Zoo"

Engagement:

Teachers will show the students micro-slides (or pictures) of the Kingdoms Monera and Protista. After each kingdom ask the students to which kingdom does the organism belong( allow them to guess and explain their hypothesis). Then tell the students the name and the kingdom to which the organism belongs. (This will lead into the Explore Activity)

 

Exploration:

Students will be divided into two major divisions: Soil Investigators and Pond Investigators.

Purpose: Where will you find the most organisms?

Hypothesis:

Materials:

Soil Investigative Materials

Soil Investigators will be sub-divided into four groups to survey different areas of the habitat (ex: north, south, east and west or near the tree, under the marsh, by the pond and near the herb garden). Each of the sub-groups will be responsible to collect two soil samples:

  1. litter
  2. 5 cm within the soil

Procedures:

Part I

  1. Use the garden trowel to gather a sample of litter and soil, 5 cm deep from your assigned location. Put the sample into two separate plastic bags, be sure to label the bags.
  2. Put 30 mL of alcohol in one of the jars.
  3. Put the funnel in the top of the jar. Gently shake the litter from the labeled bag into the funnel.
  4. Place the funnel and jar under the lamp and turn it on.
  5. The litter will warm, insects will drop out of the funnel into jar.
  6. Remove the funnel and jar away from the lamp. DO NOT DISCARD THE SAMPLE!
  7. Use the tweezers to carefully remove one insect at a time from the jar. Use a magnifing glass to observe the insect and use the organism key to identify them.
  8. Repeat steps two through seven with the sample obtained from the soil 5 cm in depth.

Part II

  1. Mix 1-2 g of litter sample to 30-50 mL of water. Be sure that there are not any clumps of soil present.
  2. Use the pipette to place 1-2 drops of the mixture on a slide, then put the cover slip on the slide.
  3. Have the teacher to heat fix the culture onto the slide and add 1 drop of methylene blue.
  4. Observe the organisms from the soil with the low power objective first, after you have located an organism then move to the high power objective.
  5. Draw a picture of the organisms you find and use the organism key to identify them.
  6. Repeat steps one through four with the sample obtained from the 5 cm in depth.

Pond Investigators will be sub-divided into four groups to survey different areas of the pond (ex: the vegetative edge, the surface, middle and the bottom).

Procedures:

  1. Use a soup ladle to collect a sample of pond water from your assigned location. Put the sample into a jar and label the jar.
  2. Use the pipette( pull from the bottom of the jar) to place 1-2 drops of the sample onto a slide and add a cover slip.
  3. Have the teacher to heat fix the culture onto the slide and add 1 drop of methylene blue.
  4. Observe the organisms from the pond with the low power objective first, after you have located an organism then move to the high power objective.
  5. Draw a picture of the organisms you find and use the organism key to identify them.

 

The diagram above was taken from: http://www.diwalk.demon.co.uk/pond/ponmap1.htmVIsit this site to get more information about each of the creatures shown above...

Explanation:

  1. Do these microorganisms play a role in keeping the wildlife habitat alive?, if so how?
  2. How do these organisms interact with the other kingdoms?
  3. Are the organisms different at the top of the soil from those found 5 cm within the soil?, if so why?
  4. Are the organisms different at the surface from those at deeper levels?, from the vegetative edge?

Elaboration:

Student will choose an organism from both the soil and the pond and do a one page research on both. Be sure to include information about the organisms kingdom and habitat. The student should have two sources, one from the Internet.

Evaluation:

Students will work as a class to compile a list of the organism's name, kingdom, location and picture from both the soil and pond. The list will be returned to the students so the can prepare for the lab practical. The teacher should give them a lab practical on the organisms.

Activity 3- "More energy Mom, Pllleeaasseess!"

Engagement:

Students will be given a group of pictures and asked to create a food energy pyramid. They must be able to identify all levels including the decomposers.

 

Explore:

Students will calculate the three remaining energy levels on the pyramids of net productivity. Students need to know that 10% of the energy available at each trophic level is converted into new biomass in the energy level above it. For energy level I students should use exactly 10%, for the energy level II, students should use 9.7% to calculate the remaining levels

 

Explanation:

  1. Explain why, as the trophic levels increase the amount of energy decreases?
  2. At what level are there more organisms? Why is this?

Elaboration:

  1. Relate the decrease in available energy at each level to different kinds of diet. (ex: different geographic regions or vegetarian diets)
  2. Keep track of everything you had to eat for a week ( include snacks), sort the items according to food groups. Decide what your personal energy pyramids look like.

Evaluation:

Students will write a detailed conclusion on the flow of energy in an ecosystem. They must include information from both activities one and two. They must understand and explain how all the activities are related to the ecosystem. (Suggested format for the conclusion:

In conclusion, I found that ________(restate the purpose)_____________________________.

My hypothesis was ______(true or false, if false state what you thought) ________________________.

When gathering my data, I found that _________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________.

I learned that _____________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________.

Be sure to include any mistakes or errors that may have occured.)

Related labs on ecosystems and pond llife for K-12 students:

1. Food Webs by Dawn Goshko: An excellent web site with many references and many other excercises which explore trophic levels and ecosystem dynamics:

http://coe.cedu.niu.edu/ci/resource/scied/student/lessonplans/97-fall/goshko.htm

2.Another great series of excercises : Inquiry-based Investigations into Pond Water Microorganisms By Marie Doucet http://www.accessexcellence.org/AE/AEC/AEF/1994/doucet_pond.html

3.Natural Science/Life Science/Ecosystems/Biomes/Water Dwellers: an excellent resource filled with information and lab activities on numerous ecological topics:

http://busboy.sped.ukans.edu/~explorer/cgi-bin/search.cgi?Function=EnumSearch&SearchField=Curriculum&SearchExpr=Natural+Science%2fLife+Science%2fEcosystems%2fBiomes%2fWater+Dwellers

4. Information on pond creatures can be obtained from: Aliens Explore Earth site at:

http://www.alienexplorer.com/ecology/Ecology.html

5. Instructions on building a pond for a middle school: Richard O'Rourke Middle School web site... excellent info on construction, organisms and so on:

http://www.capital.net/~bhblshs/informat.html

6. To get actual pictures and diagrams of organisms see this microscopsy site:

VIRTUAL POND DIP! at : http://www.diwalk.demon.co.uk/pond/ponmap1.htm

7. Many lessons on water life appropriate for K-12 can be found at this site: The USL Summer Science Teacher's Enhancement Institiue at: http://www.nwrc.gov/lessons/95content.html

8. A great site that directs you to web pages on every topic in biology:

Frank Potter's Science Gems - Life Science I :http://WWW-sci.lib.uci.edu/SEP/life.html#6

Modified by E. Iglich 6/99

The preparation of these materials were supported in part by a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to Western Maryland College. For more information on the Howard Hughes supported Prince George's Middle School Science Teacher's Outreach Program contact: eiglich@wmdc.edu