This lesson provides an overview of the major factors that affect plant growth including: water, air, temperature, light and nutrients. If sticking to the basics, the lesson can be taught using all factors except nutrients. However, nutrient information is provided for longer class periods.

In this lesson, students learn about ecosystem functions and the natural processes that occur in forests. They read the essay “Odyssey” from Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac and discuss the concepts of change, interconnectivity, and sustainability. In small groups, students research a forest ecosystem and then work in a large group to create ecosystem food webs. Together, students use the knowledge they have gained to create a story that describes the journey of an atom through different forest ecosystems.

Students will read scientific text about top predators in Arctic marine ecosystems and how they may be affected by global climate change. Students will work individually or collaboratively to write a report based on the scientific text they have read and participate in a large-group discussion session based on their analysis.

This lesson provides students with an opportunity to explore the climate change concept in greater depth. The focus is on plant competition, reproductive output, and how these concepts may vary based on climate change predictions. The emphasis in this lesson is the effect of increasing amounts of water, predicted by global climate change models for some parts of the United States, on the production of fruits and seeds (measures of reproductive output).

The Ecology Student Edition book is one of ten volumes making up the Human Biology curriculum, an interdisciplinary and inquiry-based approach to the study of life science.

Ecology is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment; it seeks to understand the vital connections between plants and animals and the world around them. Ecology also provides information about the benefits of ecosystems and how we can use Earth’s resources in ways that leave the environment healthy for future generations. The many specialties within ecology provide us with information to better understand the world around us. This information also can help us improve our environment, manage our natural resources, and protect human health.

In this lesson, students will interpret data on the evolution of plants and the change in the atmosphere, and construct a drawn model of photosynthesis.

In this lesson, students learn about the carbon cycle and how carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere.

In this lesson, students focus initially on a sub-section of Earth's natural carbon cycle related to the biosphere involving the cycling of carbon through the processes of photosynthesis, respiration, and decay. Following that, they study an annotated representation of the full carbon cycle with reservoirs and the processes that drive carbon from one reservoir to others. Finally, students learn about the interconnectedness of the Earth system, feedback loops, and how changes in the carbon cycle lead to other changes in the system.

In this lesson, students will learn about the effects of deforestation on the carbon cycle, climate and the environment. In the second part of the lesson, students use the Global Forest Cover data tool developed by the World Resources Institute to conduct their own research on changes in forest cover.

Students analyze a map to identify and describe multiple landscapes in the Amazon rain forest, the organisms that inhabit those landscapes, and the role of the forest in the water cycle and nutrient cycle. Then they construct a scientific argument for the effects of deforestation on the local ecosystem and the water and nutrient cycles.

Students explore major marine ecosystems by locating them on maps. Students use marine examples to learn about energy transfer through food chains and food webs. They discuss how food webs can illustrate the health and resilience of an ecosystem.

Students use marine organism cards and trophic level classifications to identify and describe food chains in several marine ecosystems.

Students investigate marine food webs and trophic levels, research one marine organism, this activity sand fit their organisms together in a class-created food web showing a balanced marine ecosystem.

Students explore the role of soil microbes in the carbon cycle and investigate how quickly different kinds of paper decompose under the action of soil microbes.

In this activity, students are given a habitat card and then identify and arrange the appropriate species in a food chain. They then indicate how each species affects the species in the trophic level below it in order to illustrate a trophic cascade.

Cycles in nature are important. Plants especially rely on the recycling and cycling of nutrients. One of the main nutrients plants require and help cycle through the ecosystem is nitrogen. Human activities such as fertilizing lawns and crops change the amount of nitrogen in the ecosystem. In this activity, students will determine the effect varying concentrations of nitrogen have on plant growth by designing and completing a controlled experiment testing the effects of fertilizers on plant growth and the effect of fertilizer runoff on algae growth. Students will develop a hypothesis on the effects of different concentrations of fertilizer on plants and the effects of fertilizer runoff on algal growth. The students will develop and write out a controlled experiment to test their hypothesis. They should include controls, constants, dependent variable(s) and independent variable(s) in their procedure. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

This game reviews the nitrogen cycle and can be used to reinforce concepts after students' discussion on nitrogen fixation, ammonium, volatilization, nitrate and denitrification.

Students will culture nitrogen-fixing bacteria from root nodules of leguminous plants. This will reinforce understanding of the role of bacteria in the nitrogen cycle and explore a common example of symbiosis or mutualism.

After completing this investigation, students should be able to: describe the biological and physical processes that make the ocean a carbon sink; describe the role of phytoplankton in maintaining the ocean biological pump- an important biological process; and use systems thinking to predict the causal effects of warmer water on the biological carbon pump