Science, Unit: A Interactions and Ecosystems

1. Investigate and describe relationships between humans and their environments, identify related issues and scientific questions

• Illustrate how life-supporting environments meet the needs of living things for nutrients, energy source, moisture, suitable habitat and exchange of gases.

• Describe examples of interaction and interdependency within an ecosystem.

• Identify examples of human impact on ecosystems, investigate and analyze link between the impacts and the human wants and needs that give rise to them.

• Analyze personal and public decisions that involve consideration of environmental impacts and identify needs for scientific knowledge that can inform those decisions.

2. Trace and interpret the flow of energy and materials within an ecosystem

• Analyze ecosystem to identify biotic and abiotic components and describe interactions among these components.

• Analyze ecosystems to identify producers, consumers, and decomposers to describe how energy is supplied to and flows through a food web.

4.Describe the relations among knowledge, decisions and actions in maintaining life supporting environments

• Identify intended and unintended consequences of human activities within local and global environments.

• Analyze a local environmental issue or problem based on evidence from a variety of sources and identify possible actions and consequences.

Science – Unit A: Biological Diversity

1. Investigate and interpret diversity among species and within species, and describe how diversity contributes to species survival.

• Observe variation in living things and describe examples of variation among species within species.

• Identify examples of niches, and describe the role of variation in enabling closely related living things to survive in the same ecosystem.

• Investigate and interpret dependencies among species that link the survival of one species to the survival of others.

  • Identify examples of symbiotic relationships.

  • Classify symbiotic relationships as mutualism, commensalism or parasitism.

• Identify the role of variation in species survival under changing environmental conditions.

4.Identify impacts of human action on species survival and variation within species, and analyze related issues for personal and public decision-making.

• Describe the relative abundance of species on Earth and in different environments.

• Describe ongoing changes in biological diversity through extinction and extirpation of native species, and investigate the role of environmental factors in causing these changes.

• Evaluate the success and limitations of various local and global strategies for minimizing loss of species diversity

Social Studies - General Outcome 9.2: Economic Systems in Canada and the United States

9.2.6 Assess, critically, the interrelationship between political decisions and economic systems by exploring and reflecting upon the following questions and issues:

• How do government decisions on environmental issues impact quality of life (i.e., preservation, exploitation and trade of natural resources)?