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Provided by: Scholastic |Published on: October 6, 2025
Videos
678
Synopsis
In this 3.5-minute video and online quiz from Scholastic, students will learn about population dynamics in ecosystems and the difference between threatened, endangered, and extinct species.
The video describes the factors that limit and impact population growth and the importance of having balance in an ecosystem.
The summary portion of the video is helpful for students to have the main points repeated.
Many students can relate to the character who is afraid of spiders and will be interested to learn about their important role in managing the sizes of other insect populations.
Prerequisites
Students should have a general understanding of food chains or food webs.
Differentiation & Implementation
For an interactive activity, teachers can separate students into groups, assigning each group one of the factors affecting population growth listed in the video. Students can then write and perform a short scene demonstrating how the limiting factor works to control a population's size.
This video has many vocabulary terms with their definitions displayed on the screen. Teachers may want to pause the video when these terms appear and have students write these definitions in their notebooks.
Teachers can make connections to climate change by discussing the extremes in weather or gradual changes in habitat that may affect species in ecosystems.
