Unit Curriculum Map for: Environmental Science
Cook County Schools
Unit: #1 What Ecosystems Are and How They Work
# of Days: 25
Key Concept(s)
 Species interactions
 Interconnectedness of biosphere
 Adaptation
 Energy flow
 Cycling of materials
 Succession and change in ecosystems
Standards/Elements
SEV1. Students will investigate the flow of energy and cycling of matter within an ecosystem and
relate these phenomena to human society.
a. Interpret biogeochemical cycles including hydrologic, nitrogen, phosphorus, oxygen, and carbon
cycles. Recognize that energy is not recycled in ecosystems.
b. Relate energy changes to food chains, food webs, and to trophic levels in a generalized
ecosystem, recognizing that entropy is a primary factor in the loss of usable food energy during
movement up the trophic levels
d. Relate the cycling of matter and the flow of energy to the Laws of Conservation of matter and
energy. Identify the role and importance of decomposers in the recycling process.
e. Distinguish between abiotic and biotic factors in an ecosystem and describe how matter and
energy move between these.
SEV2. Students will demonstrate an understanding that the Earth is one interconnected system.
a. Describe how the abiotic components (water, air, and energy) affect the biosphere.
b. Recognize and give examples of the hierarchy of the biological entities of the biosphere
(organisms, populations, communities, ecosystems, and biosphere).
c. Characterize the components that define a Biome.
Abiotic Factors – to include precipitation, temperature and soils.
Biotic Factors – plant and animal adaptations that create success in that biome.
d. Characterize the components that define fresh-water and marine systems.
Abiotic Factors – to include light, dissolved oxygen, phosphorus, nitrogen, pH and substrate.
Biotic Factors – plant and animal adaptations characteristic to that system.
SEV3. Students will describe stability and change in ecosystems.
a. Describe interconnections between abiotic and biotic factors, including normal cyclic
fluctuations and changes associated with climatic change (i.e. ice ages).
b. Explain succession in terms of changes in communities through time to include changes in
biomass, diversity, and complexity.
c. Explain how succession may be altered by traumatic events.
d. Explain how biotic and abiotic factors influence populations.
e. Describe interactions between individuals (i.e. mutualism, commensalisms, parasitism,
predation, and competition).
Unit Essential Questions
1. Why is it important to communicate effectively in science?
2. How are things connected in an ecosystem?
3. What are the processes that keep ecosystems functioning and how do they insure the survival of the
ecosystem?
4. What are the differences in the main kinds of ecosystems?
Content
 Materials such as nitrogen, water, and carbon are cycled through ecosystems, but energy is not.
 The energy available to organisms decreases as you move up the food chain.
 Abiotic factors (precipitation, temperature, and soil) and biotic factors (plant and animal adaptations)
characterize a biome.
 Ecosystems will change over time due to succession and population growth.
 Organisms must interact with each other in a variety of ways in order to insure their survival.
Key Terms/Vocabulary – “Language of the Standard/Elements”
consumption crisis, developed countries, developing countries, ecology, environment, experiment, hypothesis,
natural resource, nonrenewable resource, renewable resource, abiotic factors, adaptation, biotic factors,
coevolution, commensalisms, community, competition, ecosystem, evolution, extinction, habitat, host,
mutualism, natural selection, nice, organism, parasites, parasitism, population, predation, predator, prey, species,
carnivore, cellular respiration, climax community, consumer, decomposer, food chain, food web, herbivore,
nitrogen-fixing bacteria, omnivore, pioneers, precipitation, primary succession, producer, secondary succession,
succession, trophic level, water cycle, biome, canopy, chaparral, coral reef, desert, drought- resistance, estuary,
permafrost, taiga, temperate forest, temperate grassland, tropical rain forest, savanna, tundra, wetlands
Skills
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Graph and interpret data
Work collaboratively to take notes, and make informed decisions
Measure items using the metric system
Research biomes and make an oral presentation on the information
Visually represent the cycling of materials and explain it to class
Assessment(s)
Quizzes, lab activity, worksheets, graphic organizers, collaborative group projects, tests (multiple choice, t/f)
Performance Assessment:
Students will be put into pairs, and they will be assigned a biome on which to do a research report. The
information that needs to be put into the project is found on the rubric. There is a written component and an oral
presentation component to this assignment.