Eco-ED Module Title: Energy and Nutrient Cycling
Module
Leader(s):
(name)
Short
Description:
(Include brochure information on pages following this chart.)
EcoEd
Concept(s):
(list)
EcoEd
Literacy
Goal(s):
(list)
Ben Morse
Students will learn about various nutrient cycles with emphasis on the nitrogen cycle and conduct experiments to strengthen concepts. This will be done through interactive
PowerPoints and online flash videos, a small scale pond algal bloom and soil based exercises. This module is a weeklong exercise each day being an hour or less
Understanding energy and nutrient cycling in ecosystems
Environmental sustainability
People understanding their own health and wellbeing as shaped by an array of both proximate and far-off causes: water sources for drinking and recreation can become contaminated from supporting unsustainable farming practices
People understanding the history of disaster and decision-making failures, the vulnerability of some populations and regions, and varied approaches to risk management, reduction and communication: such examples are toxic algal blooms and the Dust Bowl.
People being able to conceptualize complex causation, without being paralyzed. Understanding the complexities of the nutrient cycles and how humans can impact them.
Peoples being able to use empirical understanding of complex causation to identify specific points of intervention: understand ways that humans impact nutrient cycles in positive and negative ways
People understanding that their own actions have an array of proximate and far off effects. In choosing what food they eat they help choose which farming practices are most used.
People understanding (though familiarity with historical and cross-cultural examples, for instance) potential for change, and alternative ways of doing things and organizing society
People having creative info-seeking practices, animated analytic capabilities, and a capacity to narrate complex chains of events
8-9 Intended
Grade(s):
(circle)
Module
Objectives:
(list)
At the end of this students will be able to:
Materials needed:
(list)
Timeline:
Explain the path that nutrients take on in their different cycles including:
Water, soil, Nitrogen, Carbon, and Phosphorus
Understand the intricate balance that these nutrient cycles have on ecosystems
Recognize how humans can disrupt the nutrient cycle and cause environmental disasters
Know what options they can change to avoid contributing to cyclic imbalances computers with Internet access, 2 small fish tanks with fish, fertilizer, algae scum, a few small potted flowers
Day 1 0-5 minutes Introductions/Opening Questions
5-45 minutes Nutrient cycling PowerPoint
Day 2 0-45 minutes Interactive farm
1

45-60 minutes
Day 3 45 minutes
DAY 4 45 minutes
Day 5 45 minutes
Week later (30 minutes)
Algae bloom exercise start up
How dirk works part 1: slides 1-33
Part 2: slides 34-40
Part 3 slides 41-55
Discuss what happened to the fish tanks
Activity
Description:
(Provide enough detail so that someone else could run the workshop.
Include worksheets on pages following this chart.)
Part 1: Introduction
 Introduce topic and ask students what they already know about nutrients and cycling in the environment
Part 2: Nutrient cycling
 Go through the nutrient cycling PowerPoint and teach the students about the water, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycles
 Afterwards ask the students what some over the overlapping parts and themes were to the cycles
 Ask how humans play a role in the cycles
Part 3: Interactive Farm-Nitrogen cycle
 Have the students either together or independently go through the online interactive farm where thy will learn more about how people impact the nitrogen cycle http://www.sites.ext.vt.edu/virtualfarm/flash_mov/nitrogencycleintro.swf
Part 4: Algae pond experiment start up: nitrogen and phosphorus
 Start by showing the students what an algal bloom looks like and how it can negatively impact the local ecosystem such as starving the fish of oxygen and the toxicity of some algae. o Terms like red tide and images like these: o http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/hab/hab.jpg
o http://health.usgs.gov/geohealth/images/AlgaeBloomSign_MarionReservoir
KS_003_l.jpg
o http://www.pca.state.mn.us/artwork/newscenter/tab-littlerocklake.jpg
 Talk about how human farming practices that leach nutrient rich run off contribute and cause algal blooms especially in lakes ponds, and even ocean waters o http://www.miseagrant.umich.edu/files/2012/05/Harmful-Algal-Bloomillustration-1000w.jpg
 Demonstrate how the two fish tanks will be used. Both will be seeded with a small clump of algae. One will have algae added but no fertilizer. The other fish tank with algae and copious amounts of fertilizer containing nitrogen and phosphorus. Both should be freshly cleaned fish tanks. For added affect there can be some sacrificial fish in both fish tanks. This will show how farming and urban runoff can cause algal blooms
 Come back to the fish tanks in about a week. They can be checked up on every day, but after a week or so there should be an algal bloom
Part 5: How Dirt works and exercise
2

Parent/Guar dian Follow
Up:
 Go through the PowerPoint and included videos and exercises. The link to the
PowerPoint and teacher aids in word document and PDF is here
 This will take 3 days at 45 minutes a piece
Part7: revisit algae exercise
 Compare the two fish tanks, one with and one without added fertilizer. The one with the fertilizer should have a thick green layer of algae and the fish may be dead. The other fish tank should be okay if it was managed well and the fish were fed.
 The class should discuss ways that this type of fertilizer run off could be prevented. o Prevention at different levels such as the farmer, the city planning, consumers of food stuffs, and individual efforts.
Resources: Dear Parent/ Guardian,
Your student recently participated in an environmental education program about Nutrient cycles. Ask your child what they learned about…
- the events of the Dust Bowl
- the role of several actors in the nitrogen cycle
- the role of the people, and farmers, farming industry in preventing algal blooms
3