The Agriscience/Intro to Agriculture course helps students acquire a broad understanding of a variety of agricultural areas, develop an awareness of the many career opportunities in agriculture, participate in occupationally relevant experiences, and work cooperatively with a group to develop and expand leadership abilities. Students study California agriculture, agricultural business, agricultural technologies, natural resources, and animal, plant, and soil sciences.

Students will investigate and discuss problems associated with invasive species. They will then conduct research and prepare a written case study on a specific assigned invasive aquatic species, including information about how it was introduced, impacts associated with its occurrence, and possible control measures.

Investigate characteristics of major biomes and examine the impact of land-use changes as the result of human activities.

In this activity students will explain and model how corals eat, grow, and reproduce. Students will also explain the different types of symbiotic relationships that can exist between coral and the difference between hard and soft coral.

In this unit, students will investigate the adaptations of honeybees and flowering plants to see how each are designed to ensure survival through the pollination process.

Students will work in groups and research their designated terrestrial biome. Students will research abiotic and biotic factors about their biome. Students will create a digital presentation of their biome using Haiku Deck. The presentation will summarize how the abiotic and biotic factors interact in their biome. Students will then use the collected data from the presentations to create food chains and food webs for their designated biomes.

Students research specific examples of birds (predators) and what they eat to survive (prey) to help them better understand the predator/prey relationship.

This lesson plan demonstrates how microorganisms normally found in environments, such as the bottom of warm freshwater ponds and lakes can cause illness when they enter the human body. Students engaged in this lesson plan will learn about N. fowleri (the scientific name of the brain-eating ameba), where it lives, how it can cause infection, and how persons can protect themselves from this infection.Students will also have the opportunity to identify other organisms living in local freshwater reservoirs, such as ponds and lakes. At the end of the lesson, students should have an enhanced understanding of the environment's role in disease transmission and ways to reduce the risk for contracting waterborne infections.

Students use the example of the Burrowing Owl to illustrate how human activities can control the fate of a species. In addition to exploring the negative impact community development has had on the owl's habitat, students will read about proactive steps people have taken to reverse this destruction.

Students will describe at least three chemotrophic symbioses known from deep-sea habitats and identify and explain at least three indicators of chemotropic nutrition.

In this lesson, students learn about the concept of carrying capacity by looking at the factors that allow animals to thrive in some areas, but not in others.

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Students will understand how a human-caused stress placed on the environment affects the life in a food web. Students will conduct research to learn about the abiotic and biotic factors in an ecosystem, then create a product to present the findings of their research.

Students make predictions about marine ecosystems based on combined impacts of anthropogenic and natural disturbances. They evaluate others' predictions and create concepts maps to identify cause and effect relationships.

Community InteractionsGiving us credit when you use our content and technology is not just important for legal reasons. When you provide attribution to CK-12 Foundation, you support the ability of our non-profit organization to make great educational experiences available to students around the world.Our Creative Commons License welcomes you to use our content and technology when you give us attribution. If you have any questions about our policies, contact us at support@ck12.org

In this activity students will experience the human view of coral reefs through the eyes of ocean explorers and underwater filmmakers Howard and Michele Hall, as you watch the IMAX film Coral Reef Adventure. This video did not have a link on the site, but is available through the internet.

In this activity students will exam coral reef samples provided by the teacher. Students will then answer questions and engage in discussion about their findings. Students will also have the opportunity to examine a living coral reef system.

Students create a marine ecosystem and describe the adaptive, trophic, and symbiotic relationships between the biotic and abiotic components of the ecosystem.

This hands-on activity supports the HHMI short film The Guide and the 2015 Holiday Lectures on Science: Patterns and Processes in Ecology. Students will identify producers and consumers in the savanna ecosystem of Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique. Using a set of “Gorongosa cards,” they create food chains to show the flow of energy in the system, introduce an ecological force or disturbance (e.g., fire), and predict how that force would impact animals in the chain. Lastly, students will construct a more complex model of the flow of energy by depicting multiple relationships in a food web and again make a prediction about the impact of introducing an ecological force.

Students watch videos and discuss ecological relationships with a focus on observing symbiosis. Then they classify the ecological relationships they observe as mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism.