This video shows teachers in grades K-12 how to teach about interdependent relationships in ecosystems at different grade levels.
It also goes into detail about plants, food webs, competition, mutualism, predation, and population growth.
Teaching Tips
Positives
The video models interesting examples for each of the concepts.
The video is segmented into chapters, making it easy to jump to a specific section.
Additional Prerequisites
This video is meant for teachers, but some sections of the video could also be shown to students.
The video explains that lower elementary students can learn about the ways that animals and plants interact with their environment, while upper elementary students can learn about food webs.
Middle school students can learn about competition, predation, and mutualism, and high school students can learn about population growth and carrying capacity.
Differentiation
Lower elementary classes could make dioramas of plants and animals in their habitats. This coral reef in a box activity could be used as a model for other habitats.
Middle school students could create Google quizzes for their peers. Quizzes could cover subjects such as competition, predation, and mutualism. Students could take each other's quizzes and give feedback about the quiz's level of difficulty, creativity, and design.
Other resources on this topic include this video and article about the symbiotic relationship between fungi and plants, this article on the importance of primary forests, and this video on how bison fight climate change.
Scientist Notes
The video articulates the interrelationships in an ecosystem. It provides insights on mutualism, food webs, competition, communities, populations, and other components in an ecosystem. There are no contradictions in the explanations and terms given. This resource is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
LS2: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
MS-LS2-1 Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for the effects of resource availability on organisms and populations of organisms in an ecosystem.
MS-LS2-2 Construct an explanation that predicts patterns of interactions among organisms across multiple ecosystems.
2-LS2-2 Develop a simple model that mimics the function of an animal in dispersing seeds or pollinating plants.
5-LS2-1 Develop a model to describe the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers, and the environment.
HS-LS2-1 Use mathematical and/or computational representations to support explanations of factors that affect carrying capacity of ecosystems at different scales.
