Candyland Ecology (HS)
All living organisms need a particular set of resources (physical, chemical, or biological) to survive (termed their ecological niche) and, very often, they have special adaptations to better acquire some resources over others. If we understand how these adaptations affect the way an organism uses resources we can predict how organisms will respond to different scenarios (i.e., changing habitats, predation). To demonstrate these concepts we will investigate how different types of “organisms” feed on a special set of prey items (candy!).
objectives
By the end of the activity students should be able to:
1. Describe the concept of the ecological niche
2. Predict the resource needs of a biological organism given a description
3. Predict the outcome of species interactions over resources
4. Predict how changing resource availability will affect the outcome of species interactions
5. Make and interpret a graph
6. Calculate an average
Topic(s)
Biology
type
High school lesson from Sunday Academy
9-12
Grade(s):
time needed
6 hours
author
Sunday Academy
national next gen standards
north dakota standards
HS-LS1-2 Develop and use a model to illustrate the hierarchical organization of interacting systems that provide specific functions within multicellular organisms.
HS-LS2-1 Use mathematical and/or computational representations to support explanations of factors that affect carrying capacity of ecosystems at different scales
HS-LS2-2 Use mathematical representations to support and revise explanations based on evidence about factors affecting biodiversity and populations in ecosystems of different scales.
HS-LS2-7 Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity