The plot of land our group used was a small pond behind the Indian Valley College, and the land around it. It was slightly larger than a football field. We decided to recommend putting in an array of twenty-four solar panels on one side of the lake, and 12 picnic tables on the other side. The idea was to generate power for the college, create a rest spot for hikers, and create a learning area for students. We then used what we had been learning to predict how the site would look 50, 100, 300, and 1,000 years in the future, with and without our policy change. We made a presentation of this, and showed it to the rest of the class. After that, we converted our proposal into letter, and sent it to a representative for consideration. Our slideshow can be seen below.
Concepts Used:
Biology: The study of living things, biology can take many forms. It can happen on a microscopic scale, or on a scale as large as a biome.
Biotic Factor: A living factor. This includes microscopic creatures, plants, animals, and organic matter.
Abiotic Factor: A non-living factor. This includes the air, the elevation, bodies of water, and the ground.
Food web: A graphic representation of the way energy moves through an ecosystem. It will start with an organism that creates its own energy, usually a plant, then move on to organisms that get energy by consuming other organisms. The food web represents consumption using an arrow pointing in the direction energy moves. The organism with no arrows coming from it is the apex predator.
Succession: When an ecosystem is disturbed due to a large factor, destroying a large amount of the organisms the ecosystem was composed of, succession takes place. It is the process by which an ecosystem regenerates, and changes. Typically, pioneer species are the first to grow back onto the land. These species are very hardy, and improve the soil and rocks of the area so that other things can begin to grow. After pioneer species, fast growing and short lived plants are next to appear. After a few years, though, trees will have had enough time too grow. Succession can recreate the same ecosystem that existed before the big event, but it will take some time and often doesn't. There are two types of succession: primary and secondary. Primary succession is when there is no soil where the succession occurs, and secondary happens when there is soil.
Carrying Capacity: The number of organisms a certain piece of land can support. This is limited by resources. When the number of organisms in a plot of land is over the carrying capacity, the land runs out of resources and organisms die until the population has dropped below the carrying capacity, at which point the resources can support the community.
Biodiversity: All the differences between life-forms in a given area. The higher the biodiversity of the species in an area, the more likely it is that something will survive a cataclysmic event.
Climate: The general weather of an area, averaged over a long time. Climate can be affected by the greenhouse effect.
Biology: The study of living things, biology can take many forms. It can happen on a microscopic scale, or on a scale as large as a biome.
Biotic Factor: A living factor. This includes microscopic creatures, plants, animals, and organic matter.
Abiotic Factor: A non-living factor. This includes the air, the elevation, bodies of water, and the ground.
Food web: A graphic representation of the way energy moves through an ecosystem. It will start with an organism that creates its own energy, usually a plant, then move on to organisms that get energy by consuming other organisms. The food web represents consumption using an arrow pointing in the direction energy moves. The organism with no arrows coming from it is the apex predator.
Succession: When an ecosystem is disturbed due to a large factor, destroying a large amount of the organisms the ecosystem was composed of, succession takes place. It is the process by which an ecosystem regenerates, and changes. Typically, pioneer species are the first to grow back onto the land. These species are very hardy, and improve the soil and rocks of the area so that other things can begin to grow. After pioneer species, fast growing and short lived plants are next to appear. After a few years, though, trees will have had enough time too grow. Succession can recreate the same ecosystem that existed before the big event, but it will take some time and often doesn't. There are two types of succession: primary and secondary. Primary succession is when there is no soil where the succession occurs, and secondary happens when there is soil.
Carrying Capacity: The number of organisms a certain piece of land can support. This is limited by resources. When the number of organisms in a plot of land is over the carrying capacity, the land runs out of resources and organisms die until the population has dropped below the carrying capacity, at which point the resources can support the community.
Biodiversity: All the differences between life-forms in a given area. The higher the biodiversity of the species in an area, the more likely it is that something will survive a cataclysmic event.
Climate: The general weather of an area, averaged over a long time. Climate can be affected by the greenhouse effect.
Reflections:
In this unit, I did some things well, and some things not so well. One thing I did well at was making predictions about the future. Since so little is known about what could happen far in the future, it is fairly difficult to make accurate predictions, but I had a knack for combining all the things I knew to make what I hoped were correct predictions. Another thing I did well was condensing information. Near the end of our project, we found that we had put far too much information into our slideshow, and that it was extremely long and boring. I helped turn many of our slides into single slides, and I was decent at deciding what information to cut. On thing I didn't do well was staying on-task. After I completed my work, I often didn't have the initiative, or was to intimidated by the work ahead of me, to start something else. Because of this, I got off task fairly often. In the future, I can stop this by trying to find something smaller to do, and doing it. A final thing I didn't do well was keeping the rest of the group on task. Though some of my group members were constantly working, some of them seemed ready to leap at the flimsiest excuse to do something else. In the future, I could be more insistent about getting my group-members back on track, rather than just expressing my disapproval and moving on.
In this unit, I did some things well, and some things not so well. One thing I did well at was making predictions about the future. Since so little is known about what could happen far in the future, it is fairly difficult to make accurate predictions, but I had a knack for combining all the things I knew to make what I hoped were correct predictions. Another thing I did well was condensing information. Near the end of our project, we found that we had put far too much information into our slideshow, and that it was extremely long and boring. I helped turn many of our slides into single slides, and I was decent at deciding what information to cut. On thing I didn't do well was staying on-task. After I completed my work, I often didn't have the initiative, or was to intimidated by the work ahead of me, to start something else. Because of this, I got off task fairly often. In the future, I can stop this by trying to find something smaller to do, and doing it. A final thing I didn't do well was keeping the rest of the group on task. Though some of my group members were constantly working, some of them seemed ready to leap at the flimsiest excuse to do something else. In the future, I could be more insistent about getting my group-members back on track, rather than just expressing my disapproval and moving on.