Download Ecology Performance Task 2016

Team Members 1. ___________________
Date _________ Period ___ Assignment # ___
2. ___________________
3. ___________________
Ecosystem Research Project Role 1: Ecosystem Interactions
Lead Team Researcher Questions 1 – 3: ________________________________
Ecosystem Type & Location: ______________________________________________________________
1. Identify a minimum of 20 species that live in your given ecosystem. Make sure to include producers
and consumers.
List all resources you used to help answer this question here:
2. Using at least 15 of the species you identified above, research their feeding relationships. Create
food chains that start with you chosen producers.
List all resources you used:
CONTINUES ON BACK…
Team Members 1. ___________________
Date _________ Period ___ Assignment # ___
2. ___________________
3. ___________________
3. Use the feeding relationships to construct a rough draft of a food web to represent these feeding
relationships. You will use this to construct a cleaned up food web for your poster using printed or
drawn and labeled images of each species.
List all resources you used:
Team Members 1. ___________________
Date _________ Period ___ Assignment # ___
2. ___________________
3. ___________________
Ecosystem Research Project Role 2: Biodiversity & Population Fluctuations
Lead Team Researcher Questions 4 – 8: ________________________________
Ecosystem Type & Location: ______________________________________________________________
4. Choose a focus species within your given ecosystem. Describe your focus species. Include its
appearance, approximate size, life span, reproduction cycle, and trophic level(s) based on where they
would be placed on an energy pyramid.
List all resources you used to help answer this question here:
5. What is your focus species population size, approximate if necessary, in your given ecosystem?
List all resources you used:
CONTINUES ON BACK…
Team Members 1. ___________________
Date _________ Period ___ Assignment # ___
2. ___________________
3. ___________________
6. What is your focus species role in this ecosystem? Is your focus species a keystone species helping
to maintain the balance and biodiversity of this ecosystem? Provide evidence for why it is or is not a
keystone species.
List all resources you used:
7. In what ways, if any, has your ecosystem experienced any documented changes over the years
concerning population balance and biodiversity?
List all resources you used:
8. Have Humans played a part in these population fluctuations? If so, in what ways have humans
affected these populations?
List all resources you used:
Team Members 1. ___________________
Date _________ Period ___ Assignment # ___
2. ___________________
3. ___________________
Ecosystem Research Project Role 3: Visual Director
Visual Director: ________________________________
Ecosystem Type & Location: ______________________________________________________________
You will be responsible gathering the following for your group and for the overall layout of your research
presentation:
Use spaces below to check off completion of each task
____ 1. Image or drawing of your ecosystem.
____ 2. Small Images or drawings of organisms needed for group’s food web.
____ 3. Image(s) or drawing(s) of your focus species.
____ 4. Image(s) or drawing(s) of human impact on your ecosystem.
____ 5. Create a pyramid model to represent some part of this ecosystem. You
may choose to make an energy pyramid, biomass pyramid or a pyramid of
numbers.
____ 6. Proctor team members 1 & 2 to help them organize their research on to
index cards or PowerPoint slides to be included in the presentation.
____ 7. Create a bibliography on an index card or PowerPoint slide, listing the
resources you and your partners used to gather your research, to be included in
your visual presentation.
____ 8. Lead layout and construction of poster or PowerPoint.
Team Members 1. ___________________
Date _________ Period ___ Assignment # ___
2. ___________________
3. ___________________
Ecosystem Choices
1. Yellowstone National Park
Suggested focus species: gray wolf
2. Amazon Rainforest
Suggested focus species: jaguar
3. Madagascar
Suggested focus species: Silky Sifaka, a lemur
4. Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique
Suggested focus species: Zebra, leopard, & spotted hyena
5. Eastern Australian Forests
Suggested focus species: Grey-headed flying-fox
6. Alaskan wilderness
Suggested focus species: Polar bear
7. Yangtze Basin, China
Suggested focus species: Giant Panda
Project Standards
HS-LS2-2.
HS-LS2-4.
HS-LS2-6.
HS-LS2-7.
Use mathematical representations to support and revise explanations based on evidence about factors affecting
biodiversity and populations in ecosystems of different scales. [Clarification Statement: Examples of mathematical
representations include finding the average, determining trends, and using graphical comparisons of multiple sets
of data.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment is limited to provided data.]
Use mathematical representations to support claims for the cycling of matter and flow of energy among organisms
in an ecosystem. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on using a mathematical model of stored energy in biomass
to describe the transfer of energy from one trophic level to another and that matter and energy are conserved as
matter cycles and energy flows through ecosystems. Emphasis is on atoms and molecules such as carbon,
oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen being conserved as they move through an ecosystem.] [Assessment Boundary:
Assessment is limited to proportional reasoning to describe the cycling of matter and flow of energy.]
Evaluate the claims, evidence, and reasoning that the complex interactions in ecosystems maintain relatively
consistent numbers and types of organisms in stable conditions, but changing conditions may result in a new
ecosystem. [Clarification Statement: Examples of changes in ecosystem conditions could include modest biological
or physical changes, such as moderate hunting or a seasonal flood; and extreme changes, such as volcanic
eruption or sea level rise.]
Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and
biodiversity.* [Clarification Statement: Examples of human activities can include urbanization, building dams, and
dissemination of invasive species.]