Unit D: Changes in Living Systems
Themes: Energy, Equilibrium, Change and Systems
Overview: Matter cycles and energy dissipates through the biosphere and its component ecosystems. The concept of an ecosystem is used to explain energy flow and nutrient recycling and to quantify large-scale and long-term processes. Students will study habitat destruction, ecological succession and changes to populations, focusing on the need to balance the interests of a groing human population with sustainable ecosystems.
This Unit Builds On:
Course Focus: We will spend ~25% of the course on this unit.
Students Will:
Key Concepts:
Overview: Matter cycles and energy dissipates through the biosphere and its component ecosystems. The concept of an ecosystem is used to explain energy flow and nutrient recycling and to quantify large-scale and long-term processes. Students will study habitat destruction, ecological succession and changes to populations, focusing on the need to balance the interests of a groing human population with sustainable ecosystems.
This Unit Builds On:
- Grade 9 Science, Unit A: Biological Diversity
- Science 10, Unit D: Energy Flow in Global Systems
Course Focus: We will spend ~25% of the course on this unit.
Students Will:
- Analyze ecosystems and ecological succession in the local area and describe the relationships and interactions among subsystems and components.
- Analyze and investigate the cycling of matter and the flow of energy through the biosphere and ecosystems as well as the interrelationship of society and the environment.
- Analyze and describe the adaptation of organisms to their environments, factors limiting natural populations, and evolutionary change in an ecological context.
Key Concepts:
- biotic and abiotic factors
- population size
- primary and secondary succession
- habitat destruction, reclamation
- species diversity
- human interventions in biogeochemical (nitrogen, carbon, water) cycles
- autotrophs, heterotrophs, food chains, food webs
- tropic levels, biomass, energy and pyramids
- human population growth, biodiversity and carrying capacity
- adaptation of organisms, natural selection
- evidence for the theory of evolution