In this project, we chose a place that we knew of and created a policy change that would affect the land in the future. We then had to predict what our place would be like in 50, 100, 300, and 1000 years. Our place was Rush Creek, a wetland area near the freeway. We learned lots of things about Rush Creek, including the plants, animals, and climate of the area. We used this information to predict what the future holds for Rush Creek. Our policy change was to build an outdoor school or retreat for students. We were inspired by places like Walker Creek. Below is the presentation we made that shows everything we learned and planned.
Concepts
These are some key concepts for ecology that were important in the creation of this project. ecology - the study of the interactions between living things and their environment biotic factors - living things in an environment abiotic factors - nonliving things in an environment individual - a single living organism population - a group of homogeneous individuals that live in the same habitat community - populations of different species that interact with each other ecosystem - how the communities interact with their environment biome - a group of ecosystems that have the same climate and similar dominant communities biosphere - where all life exists in the world autotroph - organisms that use energy from the environment to create their own food heterotroph - organisms that rely on other organisms for food/energy supply producer - at the bottom of the food chain; create their own energy consumer - eat producers and lower level consumers to get energy trophic level - the different steps in a food chain or web detrivores - feeds on dead organic material decomposer - decompose organic material food web - a system of interlocking and independent food chains ecological pyramid - represents the amount of energy in an ecosystem weather - the day to day condition of Earth's atmosphere climate - the average year after year conditions of temperature and precipitation in a particular region greenhouse effect - heat is retained near the Earth by a layer of gases in Earth's atmosphere (global warming) parasitism/predation/herbivory - an interaction that harms one species and benefits another competition - an interaction that harms both species mutualism - an interaction where both species benefit each other commensalism - an interaction that benefits one species and doesn't affect the other species at all succession - a biological community changes by natural processes usually caused by a disturbance biodiversity - the variety of life in a particular ecosystem or habitat carrying capacity - the amount of organisms an area can support resources - things we use or consume nonrenewable resources - can't be used multiple times renewable resources - can be used over and over again
Reflection
During this project we faced many problems. We worked very diligently, most of the time. We did struggle with focusing on what we were doing. This affected how much work we were able to get done, but with the time we were given we were able to finish our entire project. One of the best parts of the project was when we were mostly done and were really able to personalize our presentation. That is what led to our unique presentation. Another thing we struggled with was figuring out what Rush Creek would look like in the future. We were confused about what we were learning and how it related to our project. But, with help from Ms. Mathews we found what Rush Creek could look like. This led to one of our highest points: when we had figured out all of the difficult parts on the project and just had to do touch ups. This boosted our productivity and we were able to complete the project relatively quickly afterward. During this project, I learned lots about ecology and how the things in our environment interact. I also found that during group projects, I should not tell people what to do and let other people share their ideas. Overall, I liked the majority of this project and learned a lot of things.