Big Ideas
Big Ideas
Complex roles and relationships contribute to diversity of ecosystems.
- Sample questions to support inquiry with students:
- What are the roles and relationships in a local ecosystem?
- How do some of the roles and relationships in ecosystems contribute to biodiversity?
- Why is diversity an important feature of sustainable ecosystems?
Changing ecosystems are maintained by natural processes.
- Sample questions to support inquiry with students:
- How does energy drive ecological processes?
- How has an ecosystem in your local area changed over time?
- How do energy and matter move through an ecosystem?
Human practices affect the sustainability of ecosystems.
- Sample questions to support inquiry with students:
- How do human actions affect the sustainability of an ecosystem? How do your actions affect the sustainability of your local ecosystem?
- How do First Peoples traditional practices contribute to dynamic equilibrium in an ecosystem?
- How do healthy ecosystems influence the well-being of humans?
Humans can play a role in stewardship and restoration of ecosystems.
- Sample questions to support inquiry with students:
- How do First Peoples perspectives and knowledge inform sustainable practices?
- How could you become involved in a local stewardship project?
Content
Learning Standards
Content
abiotic characteristics:
- aquaticpH, flow, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, salinity
- atmosphericsunlight, wind, temperature, pressure
- edaphic
- soils (e.g., pH, mineral content, water content, temperature, acidity, aeration, nutrients, humus)
- topography (e.g., altitude, slope, exposure, mountain chains, valleys, plains)
levels
ecosystem, species, genetic
of biotic diversity
ecosystem complexity:
- rolesniche, autotrophs, heterotrophs, producers, consumers, decomposers, scavengers, keystone species
- relationships
- between organisms (e.g., predator/prey, competition, pollination, symbiosis, mutualism, parasitism, commensalism, mimicry)
- interactions between biotic and abiotic
- population dynamicscyclic fluctuations, birth rate, fertility rate, carrying capacity
energy flow
food chains, food webs, photosynthesis, respiration, trophic levels, productivity, pyramids of energy and biomass
through ecosystems
matter cycles
water, nitrogen, carbon, phosphorus
through and between living systems
succession
primary and secondary
First Peoples knowledge and other traditional ecological knowledge
agriculture, ethnobotany, forestry, fisheries, mining, energy, controlled burning, harvesting cycles
in sustaining biodiversity
benefits of ecosystem services
water purification, pollination, climate regulation, medicines, food production, waste management
human actions
harvesting, resource extraction and consumption, population growth, urbanization, habitat loss and fragmentation, climate change, pollution, introduced species, invasive species, forest fires
and their impact on ecosystem integrity
First Peoples ways of knowing and doing
prescribed fire, selective harvesting, plant propagation and pruning, clam gardens
resource stewardship
sustainable use of, and care for, local resources (e.g., school garden, shoreline cleanup, citizen science projects)
restoration practices
the process of renewing and recovering a degraded, damaged, or destroyed ecosystem (e.g., riparian zone recovery, invasive species removal, native species planting, ecological engineering, dam removal, hatcheries, wildlife, forestry and fisheries management)
Curricular Competency
Learning Standards
Curricular Competency
Questioning and predicting
Questioning and predicting
- Sample opportunities to support student inquiry:
- What is the level of biodiversity within a local stream?
- What type of human activities has an ecosystem in your local area sustained over the years?
- Which of your actions and decisions do you think influence your ecological footprint?
- How detrimental are invasive plants in your local ecosystem?
Demonstrate a sustained intellectual curiosity about a scientific topic or problem of personal, local, or global interest
Make observations aimed at identifying their own questions, including increasingly abstract ones, about the natural world
Formulate multiple hypotheses and predict multiple outcomes
Planning and conducting
Planning and conducting
- Sample opportunities to support student inquiry:
- How can we measure the level of biodiversity within a local stream?
- How would you gather data about the human activities that have shaped your local environment?
- What tools and technologies can you use to determine your local ecological footprint?
- How would you gather data on the population size and distribution of an invasive species and native species?
Collaboratively and individually plan, select, and use appropriate investigation methods, including field work and lab experiments, to collect reliable data (qualitative and quantitative)
Assess risks and address ethical, cultural, and/or environmental issues associated with their proposed methods
Use appropriate SI units and appropriate equipment, including digital technologies, to systematically and accurately collect and record data
Apply the concepts of accuracy and precision to experimental procedures and data:
- significant figures
- uncertainty
- scientific notation
Processing and analyzing data and information
Processing and analyzing data and information
- Sample opportunities to support student inquiry:
- What is the relationship between water quality and biodiversity within a local stream?
- What is your ecological footprint?
- How would you interpret your findings about your ecological footprint? Could local people provide you with additional perspectives on this matter?
- What ecosystem models can you formulate to explain your findings on invasive and native species populations?
Experience and interpret the local environment
Apply First Peoples perspectives and knowledge, other ways of knowing, and local knowledge as sources of information
Seek and analyze patterns, trends, and connections in data, including describing relationships between variables, performing calculations, and identifying inconsistencies
Construct, analyze, and interpret graphs, models, and/or diagrams
Use knowledge of scientific concepts to draw conclusions that are consistent with evidence
Analyze cause-and-effect relationships
Evaluating
Evaluating
- Sample opportunities to support student inquiry:
- What other factors, besides biodiversity, can be considered to determine the overall health of a local stream?
- What are the implications of your findings about your ecological footprint? Does traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) align with them?
- How has your ecological footprint affected an ecosystem in your local area?
- What assumptions can you make in formulating an ecosystem model?
Evaluate their methods and experimental conditions, including identifying sources of error or uncertainty, confounding variables, and possible alternative explanations and conclusions
Describe specific ways to improve their investigation methods and the quality of their data
Evaluate the validity and limitations of a model or analogy in relation to the phenomenon modelled
Demonstrate an awareness of assumptions, question information given, and identify bias in their own work and in primary and secondary sources
Consider the changes in knowledge over time as tools and technologies have developed
Connect scientific explorations to careers in science
Exercise a healthy, informed skepticism and use scientific knowledge and findings to form their own investigations to evaluate claims in primary and secondary sources
Consider social, ethical, and environmental implications of the findings from their own and others’ investigations
Critically analyze the validity of information in primary and secondary sources and evaluate the approaches used to solve problems
Assess risks in the context of personal safety and social responsibility
Applying and innovating
Applying and innovating
- Sample opportunities to support student inquiry:
- What kind of changes can be made to improve the biodiversity of a local stream?
- How can traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) inform future sustainable practices in your local area?
- How can you both directly and indirectly reduce your family’s ecological footprint?
- How can you engage in a local ecosystem restoration project?
Contribute to care for self, others, community, and world through individual or collaborative approaches
Co-operatively design projects with local and/or global connections and applications
Contribute to finding solutions to problems at a local and/or global level through inquiry
Implement multiple strategies to solve problems in real-life, applied, and conceptual situations
Consider the role of scientists in innovation
Communicating
Communicating
- Sample opportunities to support student inquiry:
- How can your findings be used to advocate for the importance of the biodiversity of a local stream?
- How can you share your findings about your ecological footprint with local community groups?
- How might you motivate others to reduce their ecological footprint?
- How can you share with others what you have learned from your experience with a local ecosystem restoration project?
Formulate physical or mental theoretical models to describe a phenomenon
Communicate scientific ideas and information, and perhaps a suggested course of action, for a specific purpose and audience, constructing evidence-based arguments and using appropriate scientific language, conventions, and representations
Express and reflect on a variety of experiences, perspectives, and worldviews through place
Place is any environment, locality, or context with which people interact to learn, create memory, reflect on history, connect with culture, and establish identity. The connection between people and place is foundational to First Peoples perspectives.