This is a lesson using Digital Age Skills in Middle School Biology.
Original Author: Jamie O'Connor, Freeman
Organisms interact with the living and nonliving features within their environment which creates a cause and
effect relationship among populations in the ecosystem. Individual survival and population sizes depend on
factors, such as predation, availability of resources, and parameters of the physical environment (light,
temperature, space for shelter and reproduction). Additionally, organism interaction serves the purpose to
obtain matter and energy. Organisms obtain energy through photosynthesis or consuming other organisms in a
complex set of relationships within a particular food web. These complex food webs serve as a basis for
understanding the dynamic interdependence among organisms and the physical environment.
Rating: Examples of High Quality NGSS Design if Improved
Science Discipline: Life Science
Length: Unit
This middle school unit was designed to support the middle school NGSS related to Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics integrated with elements of related Earth science NGSS (Human Impact). The unit includes five chapters, each focused on a specific phenomenon related to ecosystem disruption, including questions around the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone and the invasion of zebra mussels in the Great Lakes and the Hudson River. © Regents of the University of California