Unit 7 Reflection

In this Unit we focused on Ecology. Specifically, we learned about food chains and food webs, populations in an ecosystem, the overall health of our ecosystem, and ways we can improve the health of our environment. Food chains have 5 trophic levels : At the very top is quaternary consumer, then tertiary consumer, then secondary consumer, then primary consumer, and lastly the primary producer. Although food chains are great, food webs are more accurate because they show the animals eating more than one thing which is usually what happens. As we go up the trophic levels, only 10% of the energy is passed on to the next level. This means that there is a less amount of animals at the very top of the trophic levels, and much more in the bottom (producers). Next we learned about populations, and things like carrying capacity. Then we learned about how our environment is in need of help, and we enforced this idea by watching documentaries like Bag-it and Story of Stuff. We learned that if we ever want a world for the future generations, we need to start taking care of our planet now.

Another thing we did this Unit is the Conservation Biology Project. In this project we picked the Belize Barrier Reef, and did some research on it. We found that a lot of the reef was getting destroyed by pollution and bleaching. Together as a team we put together a slide show and made a video on what exactly was going on with the reef and how we could put a stop to it. Our team did a good job of collaborating, and everyone contributed in every way they could. Each person was assigned a portion of the work, and everybody did their fair share. At times, we would lose focus on our task and stray into fun and conversation, but I think our team did an excellent job with collaboration and working hard.

I learned a lot from this Unit. But some of the facts on how much we were polluting our planet were so astounding. I think we can all learn a lesson from this, and make a conscious effort to recycle more, and reuse more. Our ecosystem is precious and needs to be preserved. This unit was definitely eye opening, and I hope we can continue to learn more about this later on in the year.