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OpenSciEd Biology + Earth & Space Unit 1: Ecosystems Interactions & Dynamics Teacher Edition
Author(s): NATIONAL CENTER FOR
Edition: 1
Copyright: 2023
Pages: 348
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OpenSciEd High School addresses all high school NGSS standards. This comprehensive science curriculum empowers students to question, design, investigate, and solve the world around them.
- Phenomenon Based - Centered around exploring phenomena or solving problems
- Driven by Student Questions - Storyline based on students’ questions and ideas
- Grounded in Evidence - Incremental building and revision of ideas based on evidence
- Collaborative - class and teacher figure out ideas together
- Equitable - Builds a classroom culture that values ideas and learning of all
The OpenSciEd model uses a storyline approach, introducing phenomena that anchors storylines developing disciplinary core ideas, concepts, and science/engineering practices. Students are encouraged to dive deep into key points and solve problems through five activities.
B.1 Ecosystem Interactions & Dynamics: How do ecosystems work, and how can understanding them help us protect them?
In this unit, students investigate the 30 by 30 initiative, a proposal to protect 30% of US lands and waters by 2030, and the reasons humans engage in conservation. Students use the Serengeti National Park as a case study to figure out ecosystem and conservation principles and apply those understandings to conservation dilemmas in the US.
Through investigations with complex data sets and hands-on simulations, students figure out how limiting factors impact carrying capacity, how group behavior impacts survival, and how biodiversity supports ecosystem resilience. By engaging with real-world conservation dilemmas and exploring various interest-holder perspectives, students identify the trade-offs humans make as they manage natural resources to support human society as well as the natural systems we live in.
Unit Overview
Unit Storyline
Teacher Background Knowledge
Home Communication
Lesson 1: Why do ecosystems need protection, and how are they protected?
Lesson 2: What can other cases of conservation help us
Lesson 4: How is food driving the wildebeest migration?
Lesson 5: How does food affect the population size?
Lesson 6: Can we apply what we figured out about limiting factors and carrying capacity to a new scenario?
Lesson 7: How do predators interact with the wildebeest migration?
Lesson 8: What other components of the Serengeti system interact with the migration?
Lesson 9: How do humans interact with the Serengeti ecosystem?
Lesson 10: How do we evaluate if a conservation effort is working?
Lesson 11: Can we use everything we have figured out about ecosystems and conservation to expand conservation to new lands and waters?
Unit B.1 Teacher Reference Materials
Unit B.1 Lesson-Specific Teacher Materials
NATIONAL CENTER FOR
OpenSciEd® was launched to improve the supply of and address the demand for high-quality, open-source, full course science instructional materials. The goals of OpenSciEd are to ensure any science teacher, anywhere, can access and download freely available, high quality, locally adaptable materials. Though the goal of providing full course materials is still a couple of years away, OpenSciEd is releasing six-week units of instruction as they are completed and externally evaluated as quality by Achieve’s Science Peer Review Panel. OpenSciEd classroom materials are an open education resource and therefore free to download, copy, use, and/or modify. You can download the instructional materials free of charge at Access Materials page on the OpenSciEd website. In an effort to lower barriers for all educators to use OpenSciEd, Kendall Hunt and OpenSciEd have partnered to sell high quality printed books, professional learning and lab kits.