Do Now

1. What is a system? What system are you a part of?

October 2nd

2. What does the word relationship mean to you?

3. What does the word interaction mean to you?

System
Smaller parts working together, organized into a larger whole, for example the school system.

Relationship
Connection with other human beings, family, friends, team, job, but also with animals and the environment we live in. Interaction Action that occurs as two or more objects have an effect upon one another.

Learning Goal
Summarize the levels of organization that ecologists study.

Success Criteria
Student will be able to: Define the vocabulary terms organism, biome, biosphere, species, community, ecology, ecosystem, and population. Give examples for each level of organization. Explain the relationship between the different levels of organization.

Ecology is the study of the relationships among organisms and their environment. -logy = study of eco- = house, environment, surroundings
Discussion:

How does the bird interact with its environment?

What type of exchange is happening between the bird and the fish?

 Organisms respond to their environments and can change their environments, producing an ever-changing biosphere.

Discussion: What effect would the loss of salmon have on the environment?

What is the relationship between fish and grizzly?

The biosphere consists of all life on Earth and all parts of the Earth in which life exists, including land, water, and the atmosphere.

Species: a group of organisms so similar that they can interbreed and produce fertile offspring

Practice: Read pages 372 and 373 in your textbook. Listen to the audio file of pages 372 and 373. Use the notes and the information from the text to answer the practice questions.

 An organism is an individual living thing, such as an alligator.

Ex: alligator

Organism Organism

 A population is a group of the same species that lives in one area.

Ex: alligators

Population Population Organism Organism

 A community is a group of different species that live together in one area.

Ex: alligators, turtles, and birds.

Community Community Population Population Organism Organism

 An ecosystem includes all of the organisms as well as the climate, soil, water, rocks and other nonliving things in a given area. Ex: All animals, plants, soil, water, rocks and other nonliving things
Ecosystem

Ecosystem

Community Community Population Population Organism Organism

 A biome a group of ecosystems that share similar climates and typical organisms.

Biome

Ecosystem
Ecosystem Community Community Population Population Organism Organism

Organism

Population

Communit y

Ecosystem

Biome

Discussion about the Levels of Organization Diagram

Moving from biome to organism is like zooming in from far out to the details if an environment. Moving from organism to biome is like zooming out from a detail to the big picture.

The circles overlap and have dashed lines because the organism is located inside a population, the population is located inside the community, the community inside the ecosystem and the ecosystem inside the biome.

11. How can an individual organism simultaneously be part of a population, community, ecosystem, and biome?

An individual organism is involved in many interactions within its environment. It interacts with others of the same species in a population (like a human with other humans), with different species in a community (like humans with dogs), and with abiotic factors in an ecosystem (like humans breathing air), which is part of a biome.

12. At what level of organization would a scientist study the interaction between seals and polar bears in the Arctic? Explain your answer.

Seals and polar bears interact at the community level because bears and seals are groups of different species.

Exit Slip: Match the pictures with the following terms: organism population ecosystem

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