Big Idea 17: Interdependence

In this engineering design challenge, students are asked to create the most efficient wind turbine while balancing cost constraints. Students will apply their knowledge of surface area and graphing while testing 3D-printed wind farm blades. In the end, students are challenged to design and test their own wind farm blades, using Tinkercad to model a 3D-printable blade.

Type: 3D Modeling

Students will describe the process of bioaccumulation.

Type: Educational Game

In this interactive dive through Australia's Great Barrier Reef, discover relationships that have evolved between the resident organisms. Some are predators and prey; others compete for space, food, or mates; and still others are dependent or codependent on each other. Select one of four reef zones, then click on a type of relationship, predation and parasitism, competition or commensalism and mutualism to learn more about these relationships among reef creatures.

Type: Educational Game

This site offers an abundance of information on Earth's biomes (rainforest, tundra, taiga, desert, temperate, and grasslands), as well as marine and freshwater ecosystems. The site features relevant facts, pictures, maps, indigenous plants and animals, additional links, and much more.

This resource is a wonderful reference, not a lesson plan. Teachers will need to provide an objective and structure for student interaction with the website.

Type: Educational Software / Tool

Students will jigsaw two reading passages about the Sherman’s Fox Squirrel. Students will make a list of limiting factors and what impacts them. After analyzing the text in expert groups they will partner up and determine what government agency is responsible for helping the Sherman’s Fox Squirrel, and rationalize their answers using evidence from the text.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students are given a list of Florida animals to research on the Florida State Parks website. Students identify the limiting factors of the population and the government agency responsible for helping this population. Students create a call-to-action social media post including the animal, it’s limiting factors, and the government agency.

Type: Lesson Plan

After being presented with a definition students will brainstorm limiting factors within ecosystems. Teacher will present students with a list of government agencies that can impact ecosystems and limiting factors. Students sort brainstormed limiting factors into a provided chart of government agencies and their roles in this integrated lesson plan.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will assume the role of the prosecution team or the defense team during jury selection of a case where a Florida panther is charged with the predation of a deer.  Teams will learn about the jury selection process in criminal trials and apply their knowledge of the roles and relationships between species in an ecosystem to develop a method for selecting a fair jury in this model eliciting activity.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations.  Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson plan, students will apply knowledge of roles and relationships in an ecosystem to develop a defense strategy in an imaginary trial where a panther is being prosecuted for predation of deer. They will explore the roles of various consumers in an ecosystem, their places in a food web, and the impact of limiting factors on populations (and vice-versa). Along the way, students will compare the rule of nature to the rule of law that people live by and consider the importance of the 6th Amendment in protecting the rights of citizens in the United States.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will be able to explain how aquifers can become polluted on the land surface and identify human impacts. 

Type: Lesson Plan

Explore the axolotl, a Mexican salamander struggling to survive in a harsh environment filled with non-native species and abiotic factors that threaten its very existence! What does the future hold for these unique creatures? How are the limiting factors of their ecosystem actually limiting their chance for survival?

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an intended to support reading in the content area. The article explains how climate change is reducing the amount of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. Within this sea ice is found algae that forms the base of Arctic food webs. As the sea ice goes, so does the algae, which in turn could affect the entire Arctic ecosystem. This lesson includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text designed to support reading in the content area. The article introduces readers to a new threat to giant panda survival: horses. The article explains how both species are competing for the limited bamboo supply in the Wolong Nature Reserve. This lesson includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes one common virus that takes a sneaky route to success. It doesn't kill its leafy hosts, instead, it makes infected plants smell more attractive to bees. This ensures the virus will have a new generation of the plants to host it in the future. This lesson includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an article that explains how bees have made an evolutionary adaptation of shorter tongues due to their flower food source moving up a mountain as a result of climate change. This lesson is designed to support reading in the content area. This lesson includes two note-taking guides, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, and sample answer keys.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an article that introduces readers to the importance and role of pollinators, factors contributing to their current decline, and easy steps that can be taken to help pollinators. This lesson is designed to support reading in the content area. This lesson includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson addresses the topic of limiting factors looking specifically at maintaining wildlife populations. There is an engineering design challenge included in which students will have to take on the role of a wildlife conservation officer and create a container for the egg of an endangered species that will protect it in the field until he/she can get it back to the lab.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text that shows how a seemingly harmless invasive species of jumping worm may cause much more destruction than once thought. The Asian jumping worm eats the debris on the forest floor at a rate that out-competes the native worms so much so that it is causing a number of problems, including forest re-growth. This lesson plan is designed to support reading in the content area. It includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will be tasked with an engineering challenge to design an effective and efficient portable water filtration system. The designs will take dirty water and make it clear so it can be boiled for safe drinking. This lesson aligns to both math and science content standards.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this MEA, groups of students will evaluate the media for growing plants hydroponically in order to help restore some native species of the Everglades. Students will learn about hydroponics as an alternative agricultural practice, the rock cycle, types of landforms in Florida, and will use different methods to analyze data and arrive to conclusions, as well as present them in a detailed description of procedures and conclusions, including justification and evidence for each decision.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

Dr. Alex Wilson of the University of Miami is an evolutionary biologist whose research centers on symbiotic relationships. "" from Day's Edge Productions on Vimeo is the last of four films created with funding from the National Science Foundation. This lesson, which includes a pre-test, slide presentation, and activity, was developed to support the learning concepts provided by Dr. Wilson's films.

Type: Lesson Plan

Dr. Alex Wilson of the University of Miami is an evolutionary biologist whose research centers on symbiotic relationships. In this short animated film, she explains exactly how the bacteria aids the aphid. The film explores how scientists use what they learn to seek evolutionary patterns in nature. "" from Day's Edge Productions on Vimeo is the third of four films created with funding from the National Science Foundation. This lesson, which includes a pre-test, slide presentation, activity, and formative assessment was developed to support the learning concepts provided by Dr. Wilson's films.

Type: Lesson Plan

Dr. Alex Wilson of the University of Miami is an evolutionary biologist whose research centers on symbiotic relationships. In this short animated film, she introduces the concept of symbiosis to the viewers. This is the second of four films created with funding from the National Science Foundation, from Day's Edge Productions on Vimeo. This lesson, which includes a pre-test, slide presentation, activity, and formative assessment, was developed to support the learning concepts provided by Dr. Wilson's films.

Type: Lesson Plan

Dr. Alex Wilson of the University of Miami is an evolutionary biologist whose research centers on symbiotic relationships. In this short animated film, she introduces the concept of symbiosis to the viewers. from Day's Edge Productions on Vimeo is the first of four films created with funding from the National Science Foundation. This lesson, which includes a pre-test, slide presentation, activity, and formative assessment was developed to support the learning concepts provided by Dr. Wilson's films.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this MEA, students will decide how many wolves to introduce into Yellowstone National Park's ecosystem. The number of wolves could influence many factors, from the tourism industry to local farming businesses, as well as the populations of other species in the area. Students must choose to introduce the number of wolves they feel will be most beneficial to the preservation of Yellowstone National Park as determined by the mission statement of Yellowstone and the National Park Service.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students create a fish tank for a fish supply company for a future sales campaign. They will use scale drawings and proportions to design the perfect fish tank.

• First, students have to complete a ranking activity of items that will be included in their scale drawing along with three types of fish.
• Next, students will conduct a pH lab activity to gain knowledge about how pH levels will affect population and the ecosystem within the tank.
• Finally, students will adjust their item selection and re-engineer their tank drawing to support their findings and additional information provided by the client. Students must determine what objects would be beneficial to the living things that the students chose in relation to available space and pH balance.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this STEM design project, students will design and build a 3D model of an ecofriendly community in an existing ecosystem, taking into account the organisms that live there and applying their knowledge of the ecosystem and the needs of the organisms living in it to preserve the biodiversity there. Students will build a 3D model using their understanding of scale and size, create an electronic presentation, and write a summary of their findings.

Type: Lesson Plan

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson introduces the concept of an invasive species, the Burmese python, and its impact on other animal populations in the Florida Everglades. Students will interpret and evaluate graphs to investigate correlation and causation as well as evaluate claims using evidence.

Type: Lesson Plan

Through a combination of videos and class discussions, students will be introduced to definitions and examples of symbiotic relationships. Students will solidify their definitions of relationships with an included, fun, picture-based interactive quiz. Guided practice includes an interactive game to help students deepen knowledge with guiding questions and short organized video clips. The topic is further explored through independent research on an ecosystem and the relationships between them which may be used as a summative assessment (rubric, instructions, and example included).

This lesson will take approximately two class periods to complete.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students examine and research examples of symbioses that exist between organisms that live in the ocean. They watch two informative videos that contain many examples mutualisms, parisitisms, and commensalisms, and are asked to categorize and write informational texts about relationships shown in the videos.

Type: Lesson Plan

Fiddler Factors is a lesson on limiting factors using fiddler crabs as the focus species. The lesson is designed for two class periods.

• Day One is focused on introducing the concept of limiting factors. The lesson focuses on fiddler crabs, their needs, and the limiting factors that affect their populations. During this first class, students will brainstorm what factors could affect fiddler populations by brainstorming and working in small groups. This part of the lesson relies on a strategy called Think-Pair- Share to build a classroom list of factors that may limit fiddler populations.
• Day Two is focused on student research either online or in texts as they try and discover what fiddler crabs need to survive and what limits their populations. This class period is divided roughly in half to allow student groups time to research a set of fiddler crab questions during the first half and then share information to build a classroom wide knowledge base on the topic.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will explore why a rather large eastern diamondback rattlesnake decided to slither its way into a St. Augustine, FL neighborhood and right near a busy shopping outlet. Students will investigate how human impact can negatively affect the resources available to a native population and what may happen as a result. Students will make a logical hypothesis, make observations, analyze data, and draw factual conclusions.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson uses everyday household materials to provide students with a visual representation of the energy flow through an ecosystem, emphasizing the inefficiency of this energy transfer. It provides students with the opportunity to calculate the amount of energy available for transfer between organisms integrating math into your lesson while the extension activity allows students who are stronger in language to shine as they create a newspaper article.

Type: Lesson Plan

This activity asks students to become scientists who are studying the components of a bald eagle's diet. They will collect data by pulling prey chips from an envelope and recording this data. They then graph their research data, draw conclusions about what a bald eagle eats, and share their conclusions with the class.

Type: Lesson Plan

This 5E lesson plan introduces and explores the symbiotic relationships of the monarch butterfly in a Florida garden. Reading strategies, short video clips, and assessments are included.

Type: Lesson Plan

Learn about Florida scrub jay!

Type: Lesson Plan

In this activity the students will be learning unit specific vocabulary, and then bring it to life by creating a classroom ecosystem. They will each play a role in the ecosystem and be cycled in and out as appropriate. The ecosystem will look at the relationships amongst organisms (commensalism, parasitism, and mutualism), and how a singular event can crash an interdependent ecosystem.

Type: Lesson Plan

"…Everything affecting the gopher tortoise's habitat affects the tortoise and … eventually affects all other organisms in its ecosystem. Efforts to save the gopher tortoise are really a manifestation of our desire to preserve intact, significant pieces of the biosphere. …We must preserve…the gopher tortoise and other species in similar predicaments, for if we do not, we lose a part of our humanity, a part of our habitat, and ultimately our world." — Dr. George W. Folkerts, "The Gopher Tortoise: A Species in Decline"

The gopher tortoise of the southeastern United States is a reptile that creates and lives in a subterranean burrow primarily in dry upland habitats. The are also found among coastal dunes. More than 350 species depend upon the gopher tortoise burrow for protection from temperature extremes and periodic fires. The fires, in turn, ensure that the canopy is open for plentiful sunlight. Low growing vegetation is the tortoise's primary diet and depends on open sunny areas. The animal species living in the burrow are known as commensals and include hundreds of invertebrates and vertebrates that would not survive without the burrows these tortoises create. This lesson is designed for students to deepen their understanding about symbiotic relationships and, most importantly, learn that the removal of a keystone species (the gopher tortoise) affects the entire food web of the habitats in which these inhabitants exist.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson is a physical survey of our school's microhabitat. Students will make quantitative and qualitative observations of the flora and fauna, as well as making notes on the biotic and abiotic elements within the area they are examining. Through the collection and organization of data, students will make assumptions as to the relationships between all components comprising the microhabitat, including limiting factors.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will participate in an interactive activity in small groups. After briefly finding out what their organisms consume or what consume them, students will physically connect organisms using string and pushpins. Once the web is tangled, you will go around and designate a "removed" organism. Students will follow all the strings attached and explain how the connected organisms are affected. Eventually, in the mist of the class discussion, students will realize that the entire ecosystem is affected.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson will use a hands-on activity to explore symbiotic relationships and interactions between organisms in a Florida scrub ecosystem. Class discussion and a group activity engages students in active learning and provides an opportunity for students and teachers to assess understanding throughout the lesson. A short-answer written assignment allows for students to organize their thoughts and for the teacher to conduct a final assessment.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson is designed to get students to understand how a food chain works using an invasive species like the Lionfish. It is timely and students here on the Gulf Coast can relate to the problem.

Type: Lesson Plan

Through a hands on investigation, students will collect data to determine the impact of space as a limiting factor. Students will be introduced to another method for lab reports, Patty Squares.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students learn about producer, consumers, and decomposers while playing a game. After the game student's will work in groups to create food webs that show how energy is transferred though an ecosystem.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will explore an ecosystem and create a food web illustrating the relationship among producers, consumers and decomposers. They will also summarize these relationships in a paragraph.

Type: Lesson Plan

The purpose of this lesson is to introduce students to the concept of biotic & abiotic factors, the elements that define an ecosystems, and how these become limiting factors in an ecosystem. The teacher will have a variety of teaching strategies to review the students' prior knowledge of their understanding of the organizational patterns and relationships that are found in any ecosystem. In addition, the teacher will combine different teaching methods (technology/multimedia/internet, art, laboratory experiment, note writing strategy, self formative assessment) to introduce and deliver the main topic of this lesson.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will create a food web utilizing the given information and use a 3D graphic organizer (Triarama) to define and provide examples for producers, consumers, and decomposers.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson introduces, enforces and assesses students on three types of symbiotic relationships (mutualism, commensalism and parasitism).

Type: Lesson Plan

A long-term project in which students create a labeled ecosystem diorama out of a recycled pizza box as they complete an introductory ecology unit.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is an introductory lesson in which students describe, explain, and give examples of types of symbiotic relationships, including mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will be identifying organisms as producers, consumers, or decomposers. They will be establishing the relationship that exists between food and energy and will demonstrate this understanding through the construction of food chains and food webs.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson is designed for hands-on learning about how organisms are interdependent. Students will go exploring in their school yard identifying living and nonliving things. Students will be guided with a list of things to find, where they can take pictures or collect them to take back to the classroom for further exploration. Students will then research and organize their findings identifying organisms based on terms learned in class. They will create an iMovie, PowerPoint or poster and will then be present to the class.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this MEA, students will investigate the introduction of a non-native, i.e. invasive, species to the Florida Everglades: the Burmese Python. Students will investigate the complex predator-prey relationship and learn why this could damage the ecosystem permanently. Students will analyze a set of data to determine which method of eradication would be best and most effective, considering factors such as cost, the amount of man-power necessary to implement it, the effect it would have on the python population, and its impact on other species.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this MEA, students will examine the diets of a group of animals being kept in captivity at a local zoo. Something in the diets is causing some of the animals to become ill, while other animals remain completely healthy. Students will analyze the data to determine what is making the animals sick. Additionally, students will explore the idea of diet as a limiting factor.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will analyze a set of data to determine what type of construction material would be best to construct a levee out of. Students will consider not only cost, but also ecological impact and disturbances to the local community.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will analyze a set of data to determine the best eradication technique for a town experiencing a mosquito infestation. Students will need to consider cost, impact on the environment, and effectiveness of the methods presented to them.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is one lesson within a 7th grade unit on interdependence, and could extend up to 2-3 days if extension activities are included. This lesson focuses on learning about limiting factors, understanding the basics regarding the three types of ecosystems in Florida, and how the introduction of non-native species can impact an ecosystem. Students will gain knowledge to help them learn to be proactive in conserving the resources of land, fresh water and marine ecosystems.

As a prelude to later sequential learning, predator and prey graphical representations will be created and analyzed (this will also address common misconceptions) and lay a foundation to introduce density independent and density dependent factors, which are explored further at higher grade levels.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students are assigned one of Florida's ecosystems and are guided through a series of lessons that cover SC.7.L.17.1, SC.7.L.17.2, SC.7.L.17.3, culminating in a project.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students explore morphology (body shape) of fish and how they can indicate the fish"s lifestyle.

Type: Lesson Plan

During this 3 day lesson, students will review a Powerpoint presentation, watch a short video, have discussions in groups, and enjoy competing as predators for their prey in an engaging activity. Students will gain a better understanding of adaptations, and what an animal needs to do to survive.

Type: Lesson Plan

Just how quickly is the world's human population growing? In the US and other developed countries, the current growth rate is slow compared to some developing countries where it is speeding up. There are factors that slowed down this growth rate and there are similar factors that actually speed it up. Discussing and explaining the factors that determine the fluctuation in growth rate.

The US population growth between 1950 - 2000 is 7.5 times slower than that of India. In 1950 the US had a population of 80 million which increased every ten years with 1 million.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will learn how to take a clipping from a mother tomato plant and make an exact duplicate copy for mass-reproduction that will produce a harvest quickly. This will engage students as they discover this can be done without seeds, and they can grow a plant about 2 feet in height!

Type: Lesson Plan

This review game is designed to be part 4 of a 4 part series covering Interdependence. The first two lessons are Powerpoints that go over the information in the game. The third lesson is a biomes lab activity. This can be used as a stand alone activity, however - just make sure that you preview the questions and have covered this material with your students before presenting it to the class.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is a detailed lesson based on the germination of seeds, science vocabulary of plants, diseases, and insect infestations with tomato plants. Tomatoes grow nutrients that the human body needs to survive. It is a companion lesson to: Survival Journal Parts 1 and 2 available on CPALMS.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will design two outdoor gardens, 1) a raised garden bed and 2) a ground level garden (traditional). Students will, with help of the teacher, till the ground with removal of ground cover, build border for garden, add soil, attach poles with string to create a life size graph all so they can grow tomatoes and plot the data easily in their survival journals.This is Part 2 of a 4-Part Project on Survival.

Type: Lesson Plan

This activity gets the students involved in a controversial issue the world is facing. It gets them engaged in reading a higher level article several times over. Students will annotate the text and cite factual evidence directly from the text. In two days, they will have group discussions, watch a short video and read an article all while learning about global warming.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson is intended as the first part of a 4 part series. Part 1 is a powerpoint discussing terminology in Ecology including abiotic/biotic factors; symbiotic relationships [descriptions and examples of all 3]; producer/consumers; predator/prey; food chain;food web. Part 2 is a powerpoint that covers the biomes of the world and incorporates the terminology from part 1. Part 3 is a biomes lab activity, and Part 4 is a jeopardy review activity.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson is intended as part 2 of a 4 part lesson series. It is a PowerPoint that covers Biomes of the World, including their characteristics and different producers and consumers. It can be used as a stand alone lesson as well.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is a fun lab activity to be used as part 3 of a 4 part series on Interdependence.  It can also be used as a stand alone activity. Animal crackers are used - they can be eaten at the end of the activity- so double check with your students about any food allergies (ie gluten).

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, each student will explain and document in a science journal how they will over come a natural disaster/plague for 15 days. They will continue with part two of this lesson "Outdoor Gardening."

Type: Lesson Plan

Limiting factors are things that can limit the size of a population such as food, water, shelter, disease, nesting sites, predation, and parasitism. In this activity students will play a game to simulate changes in a turkey population and will learn about limiting factors.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will collaboratively work towards understanding symbiotic relationships in various ecosystems. Activities include KWL chart, short Youtube Clip, Symbiotic Sea Social, Symbiosis Scavenger Hunt, Symbiotic Style Four Corners, and creating a cumulative Symbiotic Diagram of an ecosystem of students' choice.

Type: Lesson Plan

Investigate various limiting factors in an ecosystem and their impact on native populations as you complete this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Explore biotic and abiotic factors that can influence the growth of populations of organisms in this interactive tutorial. 

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Explore relationships among organisms, including mutualism, predation, parasitism, competition, and commensalism in this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Explore relationships between key species in Kenya and learn how they interact with each other. 

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Investigate the limiting factors of a Florida ecosystem and describe how these limiting factors affect one native population-the Florida Scrub-Jay-with this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Explore energy transfer in the Antarctic ecosystem to help Brian solve the mystery of the declining krill population in this interacitve tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

In this video, fire ecologist Kevin Robertson explains the role of fire in the carbon cycle in fire-dependent ecosystems.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

Patrick Milligan shares his research on invasive ant species in the Kenyan savannah.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

Patrick Milligan discusses the relationship of organisms in the Kenyan savannah.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

Sandra Brooke, from FSU Marine Lab, talks about undersea canyon ecosystems.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

Fish Ecologist, Dean Grubbs, discusses how using statistical sampling can help determine legal catch rates for fish that may be endangered.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

NOAA Fishery management relies on histograms to show patterns and trends over time of fishery data.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

Dr. Andrea Larsen describes interactions between bacteria and fish that allow both to thrive.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

Dr. Andrea Larsen explains how fish microbiota are connected to fish health for aquaculture applications.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

Watch as Dr. Stephen E. Davis, III explains how excess phosphorous pollution is impacting the Everglades.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

Dr. Tom Miller describes limiting factors in ecosystems and interactions among organisms in specialized environments.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

It's impossible to count every animal in a park, but with statistics and some engineering, biologists can come up with a good estimate.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

Invasive lionfish are taking a bite out of the ecosystem of Biscayne Bay. Biologists are looking for new ways to remove them, including encouraging recreational divers to bite back!

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

In this video, Mark Tancig explains how decomposers are vital to the process of composting.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast

NOAA Scientist Doug Devries discusses the differences between fishery independent surveys and fishery independent surveys.  Discussion includes trap sampling as well as camera sampling. Using graphs to show changes in population of red snapper.

Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast

How light reflection, refraction, and absorption impact fish activity.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast

Dive in and learn about how statistics can be used to help research sea turtles!

Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast

In this video, Molly Jameson explains how worm composting can work for the classroom.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Teaching Idea

Communication is a big part of science. Have your students put their ideas down on paper!

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Teaching Idea

Once this contagious population interaction idea is out there in the wild, it will go viral.

Type: Perspectives Video: Teaching Idea

Learn about wetlands and how they meet the needs of various inhabitants. Learn more about how to learn more at .

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Teaching Idea

This tutorial is designed to help secondary science teachers learn how to integrate literacy skills within their curriculum. This tutorial focuses on determining an author's purpose and point of view. The focus on literacy across content areas is designed to help students independently build knowledge in different disciplines through reading and writing.

Type: Professional Development

This tutorial is designed to help secondary science teachers learn how to incorporate literacy skills into their science curriculum. This tutorial will demonstrate how teachers can teach students to distinguish among facts, reasoned judgements, and speculation. The focus on literacy across content areas is intended to help foster students' reading, writing, and thinking skills in multiple disciplines.

Click "View Site" to open a full-screen version.

Type: Professional Development

This webpage offers an extensive collection of animal fact sheets and info books, photo galleries, expedition journals, and the "Ask Shamu" FAQs.

Type: Resource Collection

In this activity and extensions, students focus on a marine Antarctic food web and work to organize the food web using an existing energy flow diagram.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this activity, the students will analyze the impact of humans on the coral reef ecosystem as a result of human social, political, and economic activities.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this activity, the students will investigate the inter-relationships of predator and prey and the diversity of food items in the sea.

Type: Teaching Idea

Students will be able to describe the sources of discarded monofilament fishing line and its hazard to wildlife. Students will plan a clean-up campaign in their area. As an option, students can carry out the campaign. During the campaign, students will document the procedure, record the amount of line collected and write a "planning book" to become a resource for others to use.

Type: Teaching Idea

Students will be able to understand the effects of introducing geographically non-native species to a new environment.

Type: Teaching Idea

Students will research protected plants and animals that live in their state and create a presentation about that species to share with others.

Type: Teaching Idea

Students will research available literature for factual information and logically argue a point of view regarding environmental issues in an arctic climate. They will demonstrate real-life decision making processes and evaluate outcomes.

Type: Teaching Idea

Students will be able to gather information, organize, analyze, and present data when given a current environmental situation. They will participate in a decision-making process.

Type: Teaching Idea

Students will identify the differences between an open and closed circulatory system; bilateral and radial symmetry; and an exoskeleton and hydrostatic skeleton. Students will define various terminology associated with invertebrates. Students will describe the differences between the three types of symbiotic relationships (parasitism, mutualism, and commensalism).

Type: Teaching Idea

Students will learn about the physical factors that limit where coral reefs develop.

Type: Teaching Idea

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Species that live in the open ocean may suffer as sea ice disappears. As sea ice disappears, the algae embedded and living in the sea ice will be reduced. This article explores the evidence collected to show the role of algae in driving the Arctic food web.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text (intended to support reading in the content area) describes how one common virus takes a sneaky route to success. It doesn’t kill its leafy hosts, instead, it makes infected plants smell more attractive to bees. This ensures the virus will have a new generation of the plants to host it in the future.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. In parts of China, pandas are threatened by horses. The pandas have a specific diet - bamboo that grows on the gently sloping areas far from human populations. But some farmers allow their horses to roam free and graze upon bamboo, taking away the only source of food for pandas.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource supports reading in the content area. The text explains how bees have made an evolutionary adaptation of shorter tongues. This adaptation is due to their mutualistic relationship with their flower food source moving up a mountain as a result of climate change.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. The article introduces the reader to the importance and role of pollinators, factors contributing to their decline, and easy steps that can be taken to help pollinators.

Type: Text Resource

This resource is designed to support reading in the content area. The article describes new research on the ways Asian jumping worms are affecting American forests. Findings show they are much more of a problem than initially feared. Because Asian jumping worms have bigger appetites than other earthworms found in the U.S., they are much more successful at eating the debris on the forest floor. This exposes vulnerable areas that may bring more diseases and invasive plants. It can also prevent delicate seedlings from taking root.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Prey species exhibit a variety of behaviors to avoid getting eaten by predators. For example, some animals may run away, find shelter, or move to a safer area if they sense predators are near. This article describes the responses of two prey species in detail: tree frog tadpoles that hatch early when predators are close by, and elk that avoid eating in dangerous areas when wolves are present. Their responses to fear can affect not only the prey species, but the entire food web.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes two studies that show how the decline of large sharks has adverse effects on other organisms in their food web. The article explains that without apex predators like sharks, other large fish and rays tend to thrive and prey too heavily on shellfish populations.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area.Tiny particles of gold have been found in the leaves of trees growing high above an underground supply of it. Biogeochemical prospecting uses living organisms to locate precious metals deep beneath the surface. From termite mounds to "roo poo" from a kangaroo, biological clues point prospectors in the right direction.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes how an algae species previously thought to be invasive is actually a "hidden" native species that blooms when environmental conditions change. It describes those conditions as well as the algae's ecological impact on other populations. The article concludes by connecting that human impact—climate change—is causing algae blooms to become more and more common.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article discusses how global warming could leave New Zealand's tuatara (a reptile species) dangerously short on females. When the temperature rises as little as one degree, far more males than females are born. One island habitat is now 75% males, with fewer, frailer females. Without intervention, the tuatara could become extinct. The article offers some possible solutions, including having the colonies relocated to cooler islands.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The text describes a newly found parasitic bacterial protein, SAP54, which turns host plants into non-flowering "zombies" for the sole benefit of the parasites. This knowledge may enable scientists to help plants defend against these attackers.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Not many people will say they like bees, but they are a very necessary part of our environment. Scientists are struggling to find an answer—and, hopefully, a solution—as to why so many bee colonies are vanishing. They believe there are several environmental factors that are killing these insects.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes the effect of melting ice in the Arctic Ocean on the spreading of parasitic diseases. The author explains how grey seals and ringed seals have contracted one particular disease due to the Arctic thaw and goes on to explain how Beluga whales north of Alaska have contracted a second disease, which can be spread to humans.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes the extreme population growth and range expansion of wild pigs, as well as how this invasive animal is damaging local ecosystems.

Type: Text Resource

This site features information on endangered species as well as various organizations and laws pursuing their protection. It includes a list of acronyms, bibliography, index, and one classroom activity.

Type: Text Resource

This site from the Sea World Education Department provides an overview of corals and the reefs that they form. Many aspects of these invertebrates are covered, including descriptions, their scientific classification, their habitat and distribution, reef ecosystem, and the conservation of coral reefs worldwide.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text is intended to support reading in the content area. This is a news article describing the partnership between acacia trees and the ants which live on them, as well as the manipulation of the ants into an addictive relationship by the tree.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This is a fabulous article that shows the role and relationship among predators and consumers while also incorporating the process of photosynthesis.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This text explains how carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is changing the oceans. The text describes ocean acidification and ocean warming. The text gives examples of ecosystems that are changing as a result.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text is intended to support reading in the content area. Researchers found that the hungrier an agouti is the more likely it is to take risks to find food; in turn, they determined that the more risks an agouti took the more likely it was to be killed by an ocelot.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The text presents scientific evidence that spiders obtain their nutrition from both plants and animals. Traditionally spiders have been classified as carnivores. This new evidence indicates that they are omnivores.

Type: Text Resource

Click "View Site" to open a full-screen version. This tutorial is designed to help secondary science teachers learn how to integrate literacy skills within their science curriculum. This tutorial will demonstrate a series of steps that teachers can teach students to help them determine the central ideas of a science text. The focus on literacy across content areas is designed to help students independently build knowledge in different disciplines through reading and writing.

Type: Tutorial

This lesson is about the flow of energy in ecosystems. The setting is Plimoth Plantation, a living history museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA, where students will learn about the first Thanksgiving meal in America, celebrated in 1621 by early American settlers and Wampanoag Indians. By examining this meal and comparing it to a modern day Thanksgiving celebration, students will be able to explore the way in which food energy moves and is transformed in an ecosystem. The learning goals focus on the movement of energy from one feeding level to the next within a food web, the way in which energy changes form, and the inefficiency of energy transfer, which in turn affects the availability of food energy for organisms at the highest feeding level. The lesson is directed at high school level biology students. Students should be familiar already with food webs, food chains, and trophic (feeding) levels. They should also be familiar with the general equations for photosynthesis: 6H₂O + 6CO₂ + Energy(light) -> C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6O₂ and cell respiration: C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6O₂ -> 6H₂O + 6CO₂ +Energy(about 38ATP), and understand the basic purpose of these processes in nature. This lesson can be completed during one long classroom period, or can be divided over two or more class meetings. The duration of the lesson will depend on prior knowledge of the students and on the amount of time allotted for student discussion. There are no supplies required for this lesson other than the downloadable worksheets (accessed on this BLOSSOMS site), paper and some glue or tape. 

Type: Video/Audio/Animation

Excerpted from NOVA: "Volcanoes of the Deep", this video segment reveals strange and luminescent forms of life, such as giant tube worms, spider crabs, and billions of microbes clumped together like a cottony web. The site where life began on Earth may have been where black smokers stream from hydrothermal vents and chimneys along the sea floor.

Type: Video/Audio/Animation

This video segment from Interactive NOVA: "Earth" describes the role of decomposers in the living world. We've all been victimized by decomposers: Lettuce rots; bread becomes moldy. Bacteria and fungi often consume our food before we have a chance to. However, if we stop to consider the important work that decomposers do, we may be a little less disgruntled by their presence.

Type: Video/Audio/Animation

This PBS Nova video highlights the flow of energy through a food web of the coral reef ecosystem. A background essay and discussion questions are also provided.

Type: Video/Audio/Animation

In this short video clip, ecologists Bill Hopkins and Sarah DuRant describe their study of wood ducks in order to better understand the impact of the mother's nesting behavior on her ducklings and their ability to survive.

Type: Video/Audio/Animation

In this software simulation, students take on the role of bees and experiment with different foraging patterns in a field of flowers to maximize net energy input. Students generate quantitative data that can be analyzed and graphed.

Type: Virtual Manipulative