Friday, November 13, 2009

Ecology


For the next eight weeks, The Discovery Center will be returning to teach lessons on many different areas of science. This Tuesday, The Discovery Center visited our classroom and we learned about ecology. We learned that ecology is the study of nature, plants and animals.

Click here to go to The Discovery Center's website related to this week's topic. There are five different links and different types of activities you can try related to ecology and their links and descriptions are below.

Global Warming and Earth Processes - This site provides movies that explain global warming, the water cycle, and the carbon cycle. After you watch each movie, you can take a quiz to test your knowledge of global warming and earth processes. This site is ideal for grades 3-8.

Animal Adaptations - All animals live in habitats. Habitats provide food, water, and shelter which animals need to survive, but there is more to survival than just the habitat. Animals also depend on their physical features to help them obtain food, keep safe, build homes, withstand weather, and attract mates. On this site, learn about how an animal's physical features, called physical adaptations, develop over many generations to help the animal survive in its habitat.

Animal Defense - Many animals have developed remarkable defenses to keep from being eaten.For example, some animals use chemicals which they spray from various parts of their bodies to deter predators. A few animals rely on trickery and copy the defenses of other animals to protect themselves. In this activity, you can sample various Internet sites and complete the activities for each one to learn more about the adaptations that animals have made to protect themselves.

Chain Reaction - This interactive site teaches you about the food chain and allows you to try your hand and creating your own food chain.

Biomes of the World – Visit each biome and learn about the plants and animals that inhabit each biome. Students can also learn about Freshwater Ecosystems and Marine Ecosystems.

Your assignment is to visit at least two of these websites and explore. Leave a comment below with information that you learned or what you thought was the most interesting link from these choices. Please answer in complete sentences and be sure to include your name in your comment. This needs to be completed by Friday, November 20th.

Happy exploring!

Mrs. Garrett

13 comments:

  1. The tundra is the largest biome in the world and the only place without grasslands is Austrilia.

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  2. a trunda is a biome that is really really cold and at the top of the world
    luke

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  3. animals hhave to adapat to other habitats than there orignal ones
    luke

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  4. Two very interesting facts that I learned were that grasslands have many animals living in them including Zebras and Bison and that Pumas can be found in North, South, and Central America.
    The liks I went to were 'Biomes of the World' and 'Animal Addaptions'.

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  5. I learned that some of the causes of greenhouse gases is cutting down tress.

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  6. I really liked the link with the biomes. Two things I learned are two types of rainforests temperate and tropical.

    - Ethan

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  7. Two things I learned in animal adoption are all animals live in habitates and that animals depend on their physical featers.

    -ETHAN

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  8. I learned that animals need special adaptation to protect themselves from predators.

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  9. I think Biomes of the World is best because you don't have to read much. Josh

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  10. The humans population is growing so we need a place to settel in. When we clear the homes of animals they need to find another place to live. So when you try to help the animals, think and stop the people from cutting down the trees.Cutting the trees will not help with the global warming. So before you cut down a tree or build a house think of the animals.

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  11. Resons why we should take care of the earth
    The more Greenhouse gases are likely to produse global warming.
    People have an efect on greenhouse gases is cutting down trees and burning fosil fuels. Cars and trucks use fosel fuels.

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  12. There are two types of rainforest, tropical and temperate
    Harry

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  13. I learned that there is such thing as a cold desert and the effects of global warming.

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