Name:_____________________________
What is alive in your ecosystem?
Lesson 1 – Activity 1 Worksheet
An ecosystem is a community of living things and the non-living forces that affect this community. Whether you realize it or not, you are part of the ecosystem where you live.
Your daily activities affect this ecosystem and the activities of other organisms and the non-living aspects (for example the weather and climate) affect your life.
Time to brainstorm!
Make several lists of all of the things you can think of that help make up your ecosystem.
1.
What are the things that you need to survive?
2.
What are the forces of nature that affect your life on a daily/monthly/seasonal basis?
3.
What living things do you interact with?

A trophic cascade is an interaction between the trophic levels (decomposer, consumer, producer, and predator) in an ecosystem that result in increases or decreases of one or more of these “links.” Here is an example of a trophic cascade:
More or less
More or less
More or less
More or less
On portions of the Alaskan coast, sea otters have become a new prey item for orcas and the orcas have been causing a decline in the number of sea otters. Sea otters eat sea urchins and with fewer sea otters present, the numbers of sea urchins are increasing. Sea urchins eat kelp, barnacles, and mussels. With more sea urchins present in the ecosystem, there is a decline in the number of barnacles and mussels.