Students' Assessment Students complete a written and a pictorial assessment of their understanding of ecosystems and human communities. With the information gained from the students' assessments, teachers can plan an approach to the curriculum. Cooperative groups design a section of a human community. Students' Preparation Students prepare for Unit 6 by forming cooperative groups, creating a unit journal, and researching the tasks of their assigned professions. Students begin to locate news articles on issues in their community and bring these to class to use in future lessons.
Healthy ecosystems are biologically diverse, have complex interrelationships, and are sustainable.
Students identify the needs of living things. Each cooperative group designs and prepares a habitat in a two-liter bottle for a specific organism. Cooperative groups design trioramas of the ecosystem they were assigned in Lesson 2. The class designs a mural of a local ecosystem and prepares a mini-ecosystem, using plastic bottles, which will also be used in Lesson 6. Each cooperative group places a population of organisms in the habitat bottle they prepared in Lesson 3.