Cooperative groups identify relationships in human communities and compare these to ecosystems. Students determine limiting factors of specific organisms living on the school grounds and identify those factors that are caused by people. Students develop a plan of how they could live in a sustainable manner if they were restricted to the school grounds, and they infer the limiting factors they would encounter. Students participate in a game that provides data for graphing the population of ground squirrels, determining carrying capacity, and identifying limiting factors that affect the population. They design a chart to compare limiting factors of human communities to ecosystems.
Students observe a turbine moved by hydro and wind power.
They define energy, classify energy sources as renewable and nonrenewable, and make presentations about different energy sources. Using solar power, students conduct experiments on energy. Cooperative groups build miniature solar cookers. Students sort preselected trash based on common properties and categorize various pieces of trash based on ways they can be disposed. Students identify which pieces of trash are organic and which are inorganic.