Energy through Food Chains

Check out THIS presentation on food chains.  It's a pretty simplistic representation -but in reality there is a whole lot going on!  Energy transfers from the sun through the food chain, but at each level only 10% of energy that an organism consumes is passed along.
This transfer rarely occurs in a solitary line from just one species to the next, but in complex ecosystems, there are often many connections between different producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers and beyond.

Your task, for tomorrow is to draw a food WEB (not a single chain) showing the many relationships between organisms in an ecosystem that is familiar to you (like your backyard, your cabin, your fav vacation spot in Hawaii).  Remember arrows show the direction of energy, not who is eating who.

Climatographs

Climate is a huge influence on the characteristic in any particular biome and each biome has a distinctly unique climate.
Desserts are pretty dry where as rain forests are pretty wet. The boreal forest has big extremes in temperature, but a different range of extremes from the Tundra.  Because of these factors, different plants and animals are able to live successfully in these different environments.

Reading climate graphs or climatographs gives us an overview of the specific climate in an area, and helps us understand the conditions that permit specific life to thrive.

In class, you completed pages 30-31 in your text -drawing and analyzing climatographs.  These graphs and questions are due in class this week.

The Biomes we know and love

We are constantly surrounded by natural environments, but how often do we stop and look around and perhaps appreciate it all?

Part 1

Your task this morning is to adventure around the school campus and capture a picture of an ecosystem with a partner.  Your picture can be small scale or large scale (lots of detail/zoomed in or little detail/zoomed out) but it should be clear what your picture is of and the dynamics of the community obvious.

With this picture, return back to class and examine your picture, answering the following questions:

1. Make a list of all of the living components
2. Brainstorm a list of other plant and animals which live in this environment (think big and small, seasonal, high/low etc)
3. Examine these plants and these animals and identify common characteristics (plants compared to other plants, animals to other animals)
4. Identify what you believe are the top three (3) plant and animal characteristics for optimal survival in your ecosystem -and justify your selection with a sentence or two (fully explaining)

Part 2

Search the internets for a picture of a different biome or ecosystem.  When you have made your selection (make sure you can identify which biome you're looking at) complete steps 1-4 above.

Part 3

Looking at your two biomes/ecosystems (local and pic from internet) identify 1. similarities and 2. differences between the two biomes (based on communities and their specific characteristics).  Then infer why these similarities and differences are present in relation to the abiotic characteristics of these separate biomes.

TO HAND IN:
1. your pictures (with biome identified)
2. Part 1 answers/analysis
3. Part 2 answers/analysis
4. Part 3 analysis

DUE:
block 3 class: Thursday March 5
block B class: Tuesday March 10