What is an Ecosystem?Grade 7 ScienceInteractions in the Environment Lesson 2

What is an Ecosystem?• Learning Goals:• Demonstrate understanding of the components of an ecosystem and how they interact.• Understand science terminology for ecosystems.

• Success Criteria:• I can explain the concept of an ecosystem and describe the components that make up an ecosystem.• I can describe some examples of ecosystems.• I can use science terminology in my explanations.

The Living Parts of the Environment

• Biotic Elements are the living part of an environment such as plants and animals. Biotic elements in an environment affect one another. Can you think of examples of this?• Living things are also known as organisms. Organisms that can only be seen with a microscope are micro-organisms (e.g. bacteria and algae).

The Living Parts of the Environment• Species: a group of

similar organisms that can mate to produce more of the same type of organism• Population: a group of

organisms of the same species in a given area• Community: a group of

populations of different species in a given area

The Non-Living Parts of the Environment

• Abiotic elements are the non-living parts of the environment. They include sunlight, air, rain, snow, sand dunes, rock and water. Abiotic elements provide many of the things that organisms need to survive. Can you think of examples of how abiotic elements are important for organisms?

• Ecosystem: the network of interactions that link the living and non-living parts of an environment.

Ecosystems• Ecosystems can be small or large. Large

ecosystems often contains smaller ecosystems. (Think a rotting log in a forest.)

• A biome is a very large ecosystem or a collection of ecosystems with similar biotic and abiotic factors in them.

• Let’s look at some examples:• Cool Facts About Ecosystems

Ecosystems• Here a couple of good videos to help

explain what we talked about today a little bit more….

•https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdlwPtKg-VI

•Abiotic and Biotic Factors – Case studies of relationships• (Note: Section of video 2:15-4:22 discusses cells – you will study this more in grade 8)