Name:__________________________ Period: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Date:____________________
Real World
Ecology Project
Term Project Instructions:
This project consists of two portions including a small “Ecology Journal” and a “Utah Food Web” plotted out on a
poster board. This project is going to take a fair amount of time to complete so plan in advance and get started on it
as soon as possible. For this project you are going to need to spend time out in nature observing the world around
you and applying the information learned in our Ecology unit. Activities such as hiking, fishing, and camping will
bring you to great locations where you could complete this project. This project should be completed away from
your house and neighborhood and within a natural part of Utah.
Ecology Journal:
While you are out in nature write a two page journal about what you saw and what you did. This journal needs to
apply knowledge you have learned from our ecology unit so it must include you identifying ecological components
such as producers, consumers, decomposers, food webs, photosynthesis, respiration, limiting factors, energy
pyramids, competition, symbiosis, and predation. You do not need to identify all of these ecological components
but you should be able to identify many of them in your time outdoors. To complete this project bring your journal
with you and plan on spending several hours outdoors, some of which will need to be spent writing.
Utah Food Web Poster:
This project may be completed simultaneously along with your ecology journal but will be graded separately. This
project requires that while spending time outdoors you need to take pictures of at least 10 different organisms. You
will then need to develop these pictures, classify the organisms, and create a food web with your pictures. Food
webs are going to generally consist of more than 10 different organisms so you may write in the names of the
organisms you believe are missing from your food web. If you decide to take more than 10 pictures for this project
you will receive a small amount of extra credit for each additional organism you include a picture of, up to 20
organisms.
Each of your pictures needs to be taken by you. You should not use images from the internet, magazines, or other
sources to complete this project. Plants are an extremely important part of food webs in Utah but are obviously very
easy to take pictures of. I would ask that you limit the amount of plants in your food web to 1/3 of your pictures so
that you don’t turn in a collage of plant pictures for your final project. So if you take 10 pictures of organisms in a
food web you may include 3 different plant pictures. If you take 20 pictures of organisms in a food web you may
include up to 6 different plant pictures.
Once you have taken your pictures and developed them take ample time to make sure you are creating an accurate
food web. Use the internet and other resources to figure out what consumes or uses the energy of each organism in
your food web. Most organisms do not just consume one type of organism for their energy needs they consume
many organisms. Make sure and leave blank spaces and write in the names of organisms you were not able to take
pictures of. After you have constructed your food web the last step is to classify each of your organisms. For each
organism please include the following information: a) common name b) scientific name c) producer/consumer
(primary, secondary, etc.)/decomposer
Good luck on this term project. You may complete the food web poster with another student but the journal is an
individual assignment. If you have questions please contact Mr. Archibald as soon as possible and not a day or two
before the project is due. I hope you enjoy spending some extra time outdoors and getting to know more about the
local food webs and Ecology of Utah.
Project Due Date:________________________________________