Unit 7 Reflection

Before I mention how the unit went, I want to mention the ecologists project. It was a lot of fun, it was hard, it was tiring, and it was all over the place when it came to how I felt about it. But overall I felt good about it. My group members were Alyssa, Johnny, Alma, and I, and we worked pretty well as a team. The hardest parts were putting together the slide and and actually recording it, because it took us about seven tries before we got it right. It was also very tiring since we all worked on it at home for about two hours a day. As a result of that, we finished with so much time left to spare. Some groups had only a few chances to record themselves, but due to our hard work, we were able to finish it in two days and record A LOT longer than any group. Although we had challenges, it was fun: I got to know Alma and Alyssa better (and I already knew Johnny pretty well). But overall, it was a great experience. Now back to what happened in unit 7. WOW! There was a lot. From Bioethics to niches, we learned about so much involving the environment we live in.  Along with that, we talked about what Ecology is, the purpose of the food web and the food chain in the ecosystem, how energy is divided in the ecosystem, how the population of living species can possibly grow in an ecosystem, Ecosystem recycling, and how we protect our Ecosystem. 

Ecology is the study of living things and their environment, and has the levels of organization: Organism to Population to Community to Ecosystem to Biome to Biosphere. To start with the organism, it is an individual animal, plant, or single-celled life form. Then there is a population, which is many of the same organisms in the same area. After that we get to the community, which is many populations joined together interacting with each other. Then there is an ecosystem, which is a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment. An example of that would be a section in the rain forest, like the amazon. Also, there is a Biome, which is a large naturally occurring community of flora and fauna (plant and animal life) occupying a major habitat. An example of that would be the rain forest, or the redwoods. And finally there is Biosphere, which is basically a continent. 

We also learned about the population of living species and how they grow exponentially and logistically, depending on the carrying capacity of the environment, and how much living organisms in the species live. By seeing successions after large natural disturbances we still have an ecosystem and we can recycle through using nutrient cycles. Finally, we can protect our Ecosystem by looking at each environment and determining the amount of habitat loss, overexploitation, introduced/exotic species, and climate change in it, and try to help it and solve the problems each ecosystem has. 

Genetics infographic

To see the infographic, copy and paste this link:
 file:///Users/teacher/Downloads/Genetics%20Infographic%20(1).pdf