Learn about the different interactions in an ecosystem.

PURPOSE

This activity has students use a dichotomous key to classify different organisms found in a Rocky Mountain Ecosystem. After identifying the different components, students build a food web to illustrate the linkages within ecosystems.

This activity was adapted with permission from Ducks Unlimited Canada’s Wetland Ecosystems III (www.ducks.ca/edu).

GRADE LEVELS

9-12

TIME NEEDED

60 minutes

A food chain system showing native Alberta animals

Curriculum LINKS

Science 14 – Investigating Matter and Energy in the Environment

Science 20 – Changes in Living Systems

Biology 20 – Ecosystems and Population Change

Biology 30 – Population and Community Dynamics

MATERIALS NEEDED

Download: Student Worksheet

Download: Teacher Solutions

Instructions

Key Words – species, population, ecosystem, food webs, interrelationships (predator-prey, producer-consumer, symbiotic, commensalism, mutualism, parasitism, competition), biotic, abiotic, taxonomy, binomial nomenclature, human impact

Provide student worksheets. If possible, assign pairs or groups for students to work on the assignment together (remotely).
Choose the words you would like your students to define on the first page of the assignment.
Instruct your students on the level of detail you would like in the food web
- Example: label a species as consumer or as a primary, secondary or tertiary consumer
- Example: label the type of symbiotic relationship (Biology 30).
Assign an impact for students’ food webs OR ask students to choose/create an impact for a fellow group. Possible impacts include:

- Extinction of a species
- Habitat loss (e.g. development)
- Climate change Recovery plan for a species at risk
- Habitat fragmentation
- Habitat degradation: logging, pollution, etc.
- Wildlife corridor
- New protected area
- Recovery plan for a species at risk
- Reduced greenhouse gas emissions
- Park/river clean up

More Bring Nature Home for Teachers

Bring Nature Home is our online database of tried-and-tested CPAWS Southern Alberta activities! Here are some ways that you can bring nature home (or to the classroom) today!