Understanding Ecosystems of Earth
Curriculum Links: Grade 10 –Life Science—Sustainability of Ecosystems
Biology 20 –Ecological Organizations
Outcomes: Students will define what the term ecosystem represents and analyze a variety of ecosystems.
They will describe what major components are needed to fit the description of an ecosystem.
Pairs of students will research and report on an assigned ecoregion of Saskatchewan.
Materials: Handout of the ecozones and ecoregions of the province (given in this lesson)
Access to the internet and library resources for the research requirements
Poster sheets and material such as glue, tape, scissors and colored craft paper
Explore: Explain to the students that the earth is made up of large areas with similar climate, vegetation, soils, and life forms. As humans we like to
organize things into groups to understand of how things work together. Thus scientists have come up with a hierarchical system to help us understand
the world in which we live. An ecosystem is a concept where we draw an imaginary line around a section of the larger world and decide to treat its
elements separately from the rest. We want to see how the parts in it work together, both living (biotic) and non-living (abiotic) things. We use
temperature, precipitation and distance from the equator in our largest general categorizing. (on the next page there is a diagram of the major divisions
of ecozones to illustrate the concept)
Our Ecosystems consists of the following levels progressively getting smaller in area.
1) Eco zones: They are defined by the major physiological features of the county.
2) Eco regions: Subdivisions of the Ecozones characterized by climatic zones or regional landforms.
3) Eco districts: Subdivisions of Ecoregions, characterized by distinctive relief, geological material, soil, water bodies, vegetation and land uses.
There are 4 major ecozones in Saskatchewan. These are divided into 11 ecoregions and further divided into 88 ecodistricts.
[In 2011 the Ministry of Environment Forest Services completed a field guides which further divided the Provincial Forest into ecosites. It is most
useful to forestry workers to understand where types of trees and vegetation are most likely found along with the soil types that support them. It can be
found on line at www.environment.gov.sk.ca]
In the next several classes students will complete a project where they examine in detail parts of the province.
This illustration can be show to students on a screen or handed out.
Hand out the sheet of Saskatchewan’s ecozone and ecoregions maps.
Activity: The ecoregions project will be set up as follows:
Students will be paired and each pair will be assigned one of the ecoregions of the province of Saskatchewan. The group must research the ecoregion
and report back on such things as landforms, vegetation, climate, animals, and land use of the region along with major towns or cities. The pair will be
responsible for creating a written report and a poster of what they discover about their assigned region. The poster should contain a general map of
where their region fits in the province and pictures of animals and plants that inhabit the region. Three class periods will be allotted for the completion
of the project.
Assessment:
Each student will receive an individual final mark for the project. It will consist of the following:
On task behavior throughout the project
max 10 points
Written report typed with a cover page
max 20 points
Poster (creativity, ecoregion characteristics covered)
max 20 points
Oral presentation to the class
max 10 points
Total
60 points
Research will be done through the internet and library resources.
Some useful internet sites are:
Search ecoregions of Saskatchewan in any search engine
canadianbiodiversity.mcgill.ca
www.virtualsk.com
www.biodiversity.sk.ca
Closure: Saskatchewan can be described by a series of interconnected ecosystems. Within any ecosystem, biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living)
aspects of the environment interact and affect one another. By researching specific ecoregions of Saskatchewan we will learn how diverse our
province really is. Political boundaries do not match landforms thus our provinces are made up of many different types of land areas. As Provincial
Governments have control over provincial resources then it is important to understand what exists in each province. This assignment will help us
understand better the province that we inhabit.