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.

In this activity, students study a graph illustrating the proportion of prey captured by three predators for each of six species of arthropod prey. The prey species are listed in order of palatability (based on a combination of all defenses, such as spines and chemicals) with the least palatable on the left and most palatable on the right. Students will analyze the graph and answer a series of questions to determine if members of a mimetic complex enjoy greater protection from predation than nonmimics.

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.

In this activity, students are introduced to real-world examples of niche partitioning and cutting-edge technology used to give unprecedented insights into the feeding habits of wild animals.

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.

This brief video lesson discusses the parasitic relationship between jewel wasps and cockroaches. Discussion/assessment questions and suggested supplemental resources are also included.

In this lesson, students will use a simulation activity to illustrate how predator-prey and competitive interactions affect population sizes. After collecting data throughout the simulation, students will create a graph and then analyze the graph to predict the populations for several more generations.

In this lesson, students explore questions related to wolf populations. Do the ecological relationships of predator and prey populations, specifically gray wolf and elk, warrant a return to hunting of the gray wolf? What are the economic issues surrounding the hunting of wolves, such as effect on ranchers, hunters, and eco-tourism? Can humans and wolf populations co-exist?

This applet allows the student to simulate how nature keeps its balance and how rabbits and wolves behave in their natural setting.

Students consider a novel approach to conservation biology in which the goal is not to preserve a particular organism or even a habitat, but to actively promote the reestablishment of the late Pleistocent environment. Once introduced to the topic, students will take on the role of a conservation biology advisory group and conduct research to gather more information and assess the overall impact of re-wilding, including environmental, social, and economic concerns. At the conclusion of the lesson, students will present their recommendation to reintroduce the organism or not.

This video introduces a variety of zoo- and phytoplankton species, showing the interactions between them, including predator-prey. Discussion/assessment questions and suggested supplemental resources are included.

Students understand organism interactions and how those interactions shift in response to climate change, especially in grassland communities.

In this archived webinar, Briana Pobiner of the Smithsonian?s Human Origins Program discusses her research on modern animal bones in a Kenyan game conservancy. The work is not only helping us to understand current biodiversity and predation pressure, it is also a key to understanding these conditions millions of years ago.

In this activity, students review a study where researchers investigated whether periwinkle snail fronts expand mudflats and contribute to salt marsh die-offs. Students will analyze a graph and answer a series of questions.

In this lesson, students are introduced to the concept of an invasive species, the Burmese python, and its impact on other animal populations in an ecosystem. Students will explore the impact that competition and predation have on native populations due to the introduction of an invasive species.

A super continent, Pangaea, began to break apart into the modern continents about 260 million years ago, causing the isolation (and separate evolution) of various groups of organisms from each other. Since this event, the living species inhabiting these separate continents have progressively changed. Organisms have learned to adapt through hiding, camouflaging and mimicking other organisms’ efforts to outfox potential predators seeking their next meal. Many of these changes can be attributed to the concept of evolution which includes physical as well as behavioral changes.

This resource is a part of the So You Think the World Evolves Around You? lesson plan. This resource provides step by step ways for teachers to implement the lesson.

This resource is a part of the So You Think the World Evolves Around You? lesson plan. This resource includes links to student resources for the lesson.