Curriculum Topic Study: Ecosystems
Part 1: Identify Adult Content Knowledge
Ecology and the study of ecosystems is a central theme of science education throughout the United States, and rightfully so. After reading Science for All Americans and Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy, I was able to discover that the average adult is expected to know quite a bit about generally how ecosystems work as well as the overarching interdependence of life to create a constant flow of energy. According the information presented by the materials from the CTS the big central idea that everyone is expected to know about ecosystems is that all life is connected in various ways so that each organism is interacting with each other as well as their surrounding dynamic physical environment. It is important to see that even though it may not be clearly seen that certain organisms are interacting, they in fact are.
With this comes the other main point that by these interactions energy and materials are continually being cycled through successive stages with no energy being lost in the process. The concept of energy transformations, the law of unintended consequences, and nutrient cycling is vitally important for everyone to understand so they can comprehend more current social issues about ecosystems such as the impact that human technology on various ecosystems. Adults are expected to know generally the level at which energy is transferred from organic matter being synthesized by producers to usable energy for consumers to then being engulfed by ultimate consumers which then cycle back to organic matter at the end of their life cycles. Generally adults are supposed to realize that all this energy transformation is what helps to stabilize the ecosystem over many thousands of years.
Part 2: Consider Instructional Implications
As far as educating students so that they have this expected knowledge of interdependence of life and energy flow of ecosystems requires the information presented by the Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy as well as the National Science Education Standards. The information in these resources confirmed that they are expected to know these central themes and should be taught these central themes early on in preliminary education as early as kindergarten so that they can build their wealth of knowledge. Both resources suggested teaching interdependence by a matter of inquiry where students would investigate laboratory activities or real life examples of interdependence through physical observation or simulations.
By actually experiencing the phenomenon the level of understanding will exponentially increase allowing for higher order critical thinking to occur to be able to solve problems at successive stages within the ecosystem. The standards and benchmarks elicited that it is important to allow the students to understand species linkage to then bridge into relationships which could then lead into the concept of energy transfer. This pattern will hopefully then leave the door open for the students to then be able to form an idea of the constant dynamic environment that is an ecosystem that stabilizes over many years or decades, and within this any subtle change to any particular part of the ecosystem could have detrimental side effects.
Part 3: Identify Concepts and Specific Ideas
After reading the resources for the CTS I have learned that it is more important to have the students understand the concepts that make up the structure/function of ecosystems then have them define an ecosystem/know the various types/examples of ecosystems. I will do less defining of vocabulary and more of a chain of succession of what impacts what with activities to determine interdependence and energy transformation/conservation which were considered two of the most important topics regarding ecosystems for the resources thus far. The language and expectations in both Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy and the National Education Standards allows us to see the importance of scientific vocabulary. Even the simplest terms such as matter are essential to understand energy transformations and specific relationships concerning the interdependence of organisms. The term matter again as an example would be a word that would hopefully be well defined, understood, and used in various contexts before reaching the high school level, as this expectation is important for the teaching of other concepts in biology most importantly as they relate to ecosystems.
The Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy did a fine job at showing the progression from one grade span to the next, building on the detail of the phenomenon or topic. To begin, students at the end the end of second grade when students are expected to know that living things are all around us and that some living things eat each other. This groundwork is very important so that they can learn in the next grade levels how these living things are connected or linked and how the food web order works. Once this now basic knowledge has been learned more detail and eventually high order divergent thinking can be implied to solve various problems with ecosystems like resource allocation or human interaction which are two learning goals for high school graduates. Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy and National Science Education Standards (NSES) address the place the same importance on most of the topics discussed between resources. However Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy is a little bit more thorough in their explanation of various important topics, phenomenon, vocabulary, and main ideas which are clearly outlined in their learning objectives. Whereas NSES quickly addresses these topics but does not delve into how these topics develop as the knowledge base expands for student growth about ecosystems as they progress in their education.
Part 1: Identify Adult Content Knowledge
Ecology and the study of ecosystems is a central theme of science education throughout the United States, and rightfully so. After reading Science for All Americans and Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy, I was able to discover that the average adult is expected to know quite a bit about generally how ecosystems work as well as the overarching interdependence of life to create a constant flow of energy. According the information presented by the materials from the CTS the big central idea that everyone is expected to know about ecosystems is that all life is connected in various ways so that each organism is interacting with each other as well as their surrounding dynamic physical environment. It is important to see that even though it may not be clearly seen that certain organisms are interacting, they in fact are.
With this comes the other main point that by these interactions energy and materials are continually being cycled through successive stages with no energy being lost in the process. The concept of energy transformations, the law of unintended consequences, and nutrient cycling is vitally important for everyone to understand so they can comprehend more current social issues about ecosystems such as the impact that human technology on various ecosystems. Adults are expected to know generally the level at which energy is transferred from organic matter being synthesized by producers to usable energy for consumers to then being engulfed by ultimate consumers which then cycle back to organic matter at the end of their life cycles. Generally adults are supposed to realize that all this energy transformation is what helps to stabilize the ecosystem over many thousands of years.
Part 2: Consider Instructional Implications
As far as educating students so that they have this expected knowledge of interdependence of life and energy flow of ecosystems requires the information presented by the Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy as well as the National Science Education Standards. The information in these resources confirmed that they are expected to know these central themes and should be taught these central themes early on in preliminary education as early as kindergarten so that they can build their wealth of knowledge. Both resources suggested teaching interdependence by a matter of inquiry where students would investigate laboratory activities or real life examples of interdependence through physical observation or simulations.
By actually experiencing the phenomenon the level of understanding will exponentially increase allowing for higher order critical thinking to occur to be able to solve problems at successive stages within the ecosystem. The standards and benchmarks elicited that it is important to allow the students to understand species linkage to then bridge into relationships which could then lead into the concept of energy transfer. This pattern will hopefully then leave the door open for the students to then be able to form an idea of the constant dynamic environment that is an ecosystem that stabilizes over many years or decades, and within this any subtle change to any particular part of the ecosystem could have detrimental side effects.
Part 3: Identify Concepts and Specific Ideas
After reading the resources for the CTS I have learned that it is more important to have the students understand the concepts that make up the structure/function of ecosystems then have them define an ecosystem/know the various types/examples of ecosystems. I will do less defining of vocabulary and more of a chain of succession of what impacts what with activities to determine interdependence and energy transformation/conservation which were considered two of the most important topics regarding ecosystems for the resources thus far. The language and expectations in both Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy and the National Education Standards allows us to see the importance of scientific vocabulary. Even the simplest terms such as matter are essential to understand energy transformations and specific relationships concerning the interdependence of organisms. The term matter again as an example would be a word that would hopefully be well defined, understood, and used in various contexts before reaching the high school level, as this expectation is important for the teaching of other concepts in biology most importantly as they relate to ecosystems.
The Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy did a fine job at showing the progression from one grade span to the next, building on the detail of the phenomenon or topic. To begin, students at the end the end of second grade when students are expected to know that living things are all around us and that some living things eat each other. This groundwork is very important so that they can learn in the next grade levels how these living things are connected or linked and how the food web order works. Once this now basic knowledge has been learned more detail and eventually high order divergent thinking can be implied to solve various problems with ecosystems like resource allocation or human interaction which are two learning goals for high school graduates. Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy and National Science Education Standards (NSES) address the place the same importance on most of the topics discussed between resources. However Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy is a little bit more thorough in their explanation of various important topics, phenomenon, vocabulary, and main ideas which are clearly outlined in their learning objectives. Whereas NSES quickly addresses these topics but does not delve into how these topics develop as the knowledge base expands for student growth about ecosystems as they progress in their education.
Linkages are still a work in progress but conceptual nodes present.
Part 4: Examine Research on Student Learning
The research provided by Making Sense of Secondary Science enforced support for why the Benchmark ideas are categorized the way they are by grade levels. The information about types of reasoning and ability to see relationships provided by the research illustrates why the learning objectives start out very broad and begin to narrow as the students hit middle school and high school. As indicated by both Making Sense of Secondary Science and Benchmarks of Scientific Literacy, there are distinct ages in which children are able to think employ different types of logical reasoning to grasp appropriate levels of various topics. As shown by Making Sense of Secondary Science, Piaget deduced that children at a young age mostly 3 to 7 or sometimes 11 use teleological reasoning or more self-centered reasoning to understand ideas. So for example in regards to organisms, children at this age would believe that organisms are household pets or wildlife that they can see when they go outside such as squirrels versus fish or crustaceans in a marine ecosystem. Therefore the level at which the students are in there reasoning should correlate to the specificity and detail of the ideas they are learning about the topic. Above the age of 13, students are more able to grasp more intricate topics about interdependence, decay, energy transformations, and interventions by natural or human domains.
Also outlined by the research provided by Making Sense of Secondary Science and Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy were the possible misconceptions that can arise over the years regarding ecosystems. The following ones I hope to asses and address earlier on in the project based instruction unit are: using correct scientific ecological/biological terms to describe successive ecosystem interactions or events, problems conceptualizing energy transfer, especially in regards to transfer of energy to heat which many times students just believe is energy loss, however energy is never created or destroyed, students may view environments or habitats as passive, students may not understand the various features behind which level of the food chain an organism resides, students may think that subtle changes do not affect an ecosystem, and students may think that ecosystems achieve stability fairly quickly.
Part 5: Examine Coherency and Articulation
The progress of work in part five is dedicated to the systematic review of the conceptual nodes and linkages that students can/should make regarding the topic as their educational level increases. The Atlas of Scientific Literacy does this quite well starting with kindergarten through second grade provided the basis for ecosystem knowledge with much room for step by step growth to more internodes or large gaps could exist that still connect to major nodes later in their elementary years. For example, starting with the basis that animals consume producers or other animals for food could then either lead to the food/water requirement for plants/animals or the foundational basis could lead directly to all producers eventually yield food which is what animals/humans use for body repair and growth.
It can be seen as one looks at this web that there are many ways to connect the nodes some more desired than others but eventually all the pathways of information regarding ecosystems reaches the top level of understanding in twelfth grade. All these connection point differences and various pathways are illustrating the differences in student’s education that may be in the PBI class, that all of them may not have had the same background pathway for ecosystem knowledge.
Part 6: State Standards and District Curriculum
The readings of the standards help improve the understanding of what exactly as far as subtopics are concerned should be covered by the required grade level. Along with how in depth each subtopic is supposed to go, shown by cpalms under the complexity level. The performance verbs used by the benchmarks, help direct the students to how important and how information they are expected to know regarding the key points of the topics. Because reflect is different than comprehend, as well as compare/contrast requires a better understanding then recognize. The verbs can dictate how much your students are supposed to retain.
The following points of significance were illustrated collectively by the science benchmarks: communicate changes in ecosystems resulting from seasonal variations, climate change and succession, compare and contrast the relationships among organisms, including predation, parasitism, competition, commensalism, and mutualism, characterize the biotic and abiotic components that define freshwater systems, marine systems and terrestrial systems, recognize the consequences of the losses of biodiversity due to catastrophic events, climate changes, human activity, and the introduction of invasion, recognize interdependent relationships between organisms in the same species, same population, same ecosystem, and with the environment, make connections with the fact that matter/energy are cycled and never created nor destroyed, differentiate differences in number of organisms, demographics, density, and distribution within an ecosystem. However there was a point of significance that crossed over from the math benchmarks, recognize, reflect, and internalize the principle of making sense of structure and function.
CTS Summary
The curriculum topic study process has outlined not only the required knowledge of students about ecosystems but also the importance of why it is the students must know this information. Through the Benchmarks of Scientific Literacy it was evident that the human impact on ecosystems could be allievated if certain standards of ecosystem education was reached at each grade level. In addition, the thing that I learned most about this topic of my curriculum is the students possible misconceptions. Even though interdependence seems as though it would be a very basic topic, some aspects of it could be very confusing for different grade levels therefore as shown by the Atlas of Scientific Literacy, it is important to have a gradual pathway of knowledge progression to help eliminate the risk of misconceptions. Furthermore the CTS has shown me that the students must understand key concepts by the end of the unit, to name the two most important: the interconnected web of life and the energy/matter cycling throughout the ecosystem. Now that the CTS has been done, I feel more comfortable and knowledgeable about the topic, which makes me motivated to instill that same comfort feeling to the students, thus the whole mission of the CTS, the missing link of education.
The research provided by Making Sense of Secondary Science enforced support for why the Benchmark ideas are categorized the way they are by grade levels. The information about types of reasoning and ability to see relationships provided by the research illustrates why the learning objectives start out very broad and begin to narrow as the students hit middle school and high school. As indicated by both Making Sense of Secondary Science and Benchmarks of Scientific Literacy, there are distinct ages in which children are able to think employ different types of logical reasoning to grasp appropriate levels of various topics. As shown by Making Sense of Secondary Science, Piaget deduced that children at a young age mostly 3 to 7 or sometimes 11 use teleological reasoning or more self-centered reasoning to understand ideas. So for example in regards to organisms, children at this age would believe that organisms are household pets or wildlife that they can see when they go outside such as squirrels versus fish or crustaceans in a marine ecosystem. Therefore the level at which the students are in there reasoning should correlate to the specificity and detail of the ideas they are learning about the topic. Above the age of 13, students are more able to grasp more intricate topics about interdependence, decay, energy transformations, and interventions by natural or human domains.
Also outlined by the research provided by Making Sense of Secondary Science and Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy were the possible misconceptions that can arise over the years regarding ecosystems. The following ones I hope to asses and address earlier on in the project based instruction unit are: using correct scientific ecological/biological terms to describe successive ecosystem interactions or events, problems conceptualizing energy transfer, especially in regards to transfer of energy to heat which many times students just believe is energy loss, however energy is never created or destroyed, students may view environments or habitats as passive, students may not understand the various features behind which level of the food chain an organism resides, students may think that subtle changes do not affect an ecosystem, and students may think that ecosystems achieve stability fairly quickly.
Part 5: Examine Coherency and Articulation
The progress of work in part five is dedicated to the systematic review of the conceptual nodes and linkages that students can/should make regarding the topic as their educational level increases. The Atlas of Scientific Literacy does this quite well starting with kindergarten through second grade provided the basis for ecosystem knowledge with much room for step by step growth to more internodes or large gaps could exist that still connect to major nodes later in their elementary years. For example, starting with the basis that animals consume producers or other animals for food could then either lead to the food/water requirement for plants/animals or the foundational basis could lead directly to all producers eventually yield food which is what animals/humans use for body repair and growth.
It can be seen as one looks at this web that there are many ways to connect the nodes some more desired than others but eventually all the pathways of information regarding ecosystems reaches the top level of understanding in twelfth grade. All these connection point differences and various pathways are illustrating the differences in student’s education that may be in the PBI class, that all of them may not have had the same background pathway for ecosystem knowledge.
Part 6: State Standards and District Curriculum
The readings of the standards help improve the understanding of what exactly as far as subtopics are concerned should be covered by the required grade level. Along with how in depth each subtopic is supposed to go, shown by cpalms under the complexity level. The performance verbs used by the benchmarks, help direct the students to how important and how information they are expected to know regarding the key points of the topics. Because reflect is different than comprehend, as well as compare/contrast requires a better understanding then recognize. The verbs can dictate how much your students are supposed to retain.
The following points of significance were illustrated collectively by the science benchmarks: communicate changes in ecosystems resulting from seasonal variations, climate change and succession, compare and contrast the relationships among organisms, including predation, parasitism, competition, commensalism, and mutualism, characterize the biotic and abiotic components that define freshwater systems, marine systems and terrestrial systems, recognize the consequences of the losses of biodiversity due to catastrophic events, climate changes, human activity, and the introduction of invasion, recognize interdependent relationships between organisms in the same species, same population, same ecosystem, and with the environment, make connections with the fact that matter/energy are cycled and never created nor destroyed, differentiate differences in number of organisms, demographics, density, and distribution within an ecosystem. However there was a point of significance that crossed over from the math benchmarks, recognize, reflect, and internalize the principle of making sense of structure and function.
CTS Summary
The curriculum topic study process has outlined not only the required knowledge of students about ecosystems but also the importance of why it is the students must know this information. Through the Benchmarks of Scientific Literacy it was evident that the human impact on ecosystems could be allievated if certain standards of ecosystem education was reached at each grade level. In addition, the thing that I learned most about this topic of my curriculum is the students possible misconceptions. Even though interdependence seems as though it would be a very basic topic, some aspects of it could be very confusing for different grade levels therefore as shown by the Atlas of Scientific Literacy, it is important to have a gradual pathway of knowledge progression to help eliminate the risk of misconceptions. Furthermore the CTS has shown me that the students must understand key concepts by the end of the unit, to name the two most important: the interconnected web of life and the energy/matter cycling throughout the ecosystem. Now that the CTS has been done, I feel more comfortable and knowledgeable about the topic, which makes me motivated to instill that same comfort feeling to the students, thus the whole mission of the CTS, the missing link of education.