Unit F: Marine Ecology
Standards Addressed
During Unit
Overview
Students will deepen their understanding of basic ecological principles and investigate how they apply
to marine ecosystems.
Fundamental Skills:
Science laboratory safety practices including an SDS.
Food webs and nutrient recycling.
Roles of organisms within an ecosystem
SC.912.L.17.1
SC.912.L.17.6
SC.912.L.17.7
SC.912.L.17.9
SC.912.P.10.2
SC.912.L.17.10
Coherence
Prior Learning Experiences:
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Compare and contrast the relationships among organisms such as mutualism, predation, parasitism, competition, and commensalism.
Construct and analyze food web energy flow
Performance task: Produce a movie about what it would be like to live in a place that is too hot for you to survive.
Highlighted Nature of
Science Standards
Unit F: Marine Ecology
Essential Question: What ecological principles are displayed in marine ecosystems?
Unit F: Unit F: Marine Ecology
Standards:
SC.912.L.17.1 Discuss the characteristics of populations, such as number of individuals, age structure, density, and pattern of distribution.
SC.912.L.17.6 Compare and contrast the relationships among organisms, including predation, parasitism, competition, commensalism, and mutualism.
SC.912.L.17.7 Characterize the biotic and abiotic components that define freshwater systems, marine systems and terrestrial systems.
SC.912.L.17.9 Use a food web to identify and distinguish producers, consumers, and decomposers. Explain the pathway of energy transfer through trophic levels and the reduction
of available energy at successive trophic levels.
SC.912.P.10.2 Explore the Law of Conservation of Energy by differentiating among open, closed, and isolated systems and explain that the total energy in an isolated system is a
conserved quantity.
SC.912.L.17.10 Diagram and explain the biogeochemical cycles of an ecosystem, including water, carbon, and nitrogen cycle.
Understand
“Essential understandings,” or generalizations, represent ideas that are transferable to other contexts.
Basic ecological principles apply to marine ecosystems.
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Know
Do
Declarative knowledge: Facts, vocabulary, information.
Procedural knowledge: Skills, strategies & processes that are transferrable to other
contexts.
Primary productivity changes with latitude, season, and depth of the ocean.
There are basic roles assumed by organisms in an ecosystem: producer, consumer,
autotroph, heterotroph, herbivore, omnivore, & carnivore.
There are relationships between organisms in an ecosystem: symbiosis, parasitism,
mutualism, commensalism, competition, & predator-prey.
A keystone species impacts the stability of an ecosystem.
Each ecosystem has a finite number of resources to sustain population levels.
The law of conservation of energy dictates the movement of energy through food
webs.
Food chains are not ideal representations of feeding relationships within ecosystems.
Food webs represent the majority of feeding relationships within an ecosystem.
The stability of a trophic pyramid is dependent upon the ratio of producers &
consumers.
Nutrients (carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous) are recycled within ecosystems.
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8.
Compare & contrast the roles of organisms within an ecosystem.
Research examples of relationships between organisms within the marine
environment.
Construct examples of marine food webs.
Research examples of keystone species within marine ecosystems.
Interpret the change within a food web with the loss of an apex predator.
Graph carrying capacity to illustrate the relationship between resources &
population numbers.
Analyze & diagram nutrient cycles.
Construct a trophic pyramid for a marine ecosystem.
9. Compare & contrast food chains & food webs.
Concept: SC.912.L.17.6
Compare and contrast the relationships among organisms, including predation, parasitism, competition, commensalism, and mutualism.
Sample Scale
Score 4.0
Sample Performance Tasks
In addition to 3.0, in-depth inferences and applications that go beyond
what was taught, I can:
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Trace the flow of energy and nutrients within the marine
environment.
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Give examples of carrying capacity, and describe the impacts to
an ecosystem if a population breaches its carrying capacity.
Describe the graph above, and relate it to an ocean population.
Identify the organism, its limiting factors, and how reaching
carrying capacity affects other organisms in the food chain.
Score 3.0
I can:
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Score 2.0
Describe the importance a keystone species has to its particular
marine ecosystem.
Compare and contrast the various types of symbiotic
relationships, and describe the role that each has on the other.
Give an example of marine organisms existing in each of the following symbiotic
relationships, and explain the role each organism has with its symbiotic partner:
mutualism, commensalism, parasitism.
The student exhibits no major errors or omissions.
I can:
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Explain the difference between a food web and a food chain.
Give examples and definitions of the various roles organisms
play in the marine environment (ie: producer, consumer,
decomposer).
Explain the importance of nutrient recycling.
Draw a food web with 8 different marine organisms.
Score 1.0
With help, a partial understanding of some of the simpler details and
processes and some of the more complex ideas and processes.
Key Learning: Basic ecological principles apply to marine ecosystems
Concept: Organization of Communities
SC.912.L.17.1
Discuss the characteristics of populations, such as
number of individuals, age structure, density, and
pattern of distribution.
Driving Questions:
Sample Formative Assessment Task:
How do the different characteristics of the marine
environment present challenges & opportunities
for the organisms living there?
SC.912.L.17.6
How are the various populations of marine
Compare and contrast the relationships among
organisms affected by their interaction with other
organisms, including predation, parasitism, competition,
species & the environment? on its kinetic
commensalism, and mutualism.
SC.912.L.17.7
Characterize the biotic and abiotic components that
define freshwater systems, marine systems and
terrestrial systems.
Vocabulary
habitat, ecosystem, community, population, abiotic
factor, biotic factor, herbivore, carnivore, omnivore,
symbiosis, commensalism, mutualism, parasitism,
competition, carrying capacity, ecological niche,
predation, predator, prey, apex predator
energy?
Student Investigations:
Aquatic Food Webs: Interactive Information
with teaching resources
How Size Influences predatory Habits
and Aquatic Food Web
A killer whale is considered to be a _____
level consumer, while a baleen whale is a
_______ level consumer.
A. sixth, second
B. second, sixth
C. sixth, first
D. third, second
Some of the highest primary production in a
pelagic environment occurs in:
A. coral reefs
B. the Southern Ocean
C. Coastal upwelling areas
D. Central ocean gyres
http://www.teachoceanscience.net/pdfs/food
_webs_predation.pdf
Resources
Student Text:
Textbook : Marine Biology, Castro-Huber, 8th Edition,
Chapter
Symbiotic Relationships of the Ocean Biome
http://bigbluebiome.weebly.com/symbioticrelationships-of-the-ocean-biome-eco.html
The Living Sea Predators & Prey
http://legacy.mos.org/oceans/life/webs.html
Student Misconceptions:
Deeper Learning Opportunities:
Predator vs Prey in the Ocean Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAnay10svFA
Predator-Prey
http://predatorsandprey.weebly.com/openocean.html
Concept: Energy Flow
Driving Questions:
SC.912.L.17.9
How does energy flow within the marine
Use a food web to identify and distinguish producers,
environment?
consumers, and decomposers. Explain the pathway of energy
transfer through trophic levels and the reduction of
available energy at successive trophic levels.
SC.912.P.10.2
Sample Formative Assessment Task:
A food pyramid consists of 10 million calories’ worth
of diatoms. How much of this is passed on to third
level consumers, such as large fishes?
A.
B.
C.
D.
1 million
100 thousand
10 thousand
1 thousand
Student Investigations:
Explore the Law of Conservation of Energy by differentiating
among open, closed, and isolated systems and explain that
Construct a model of a Marine Food Web and
Which of the following is a potential problem in
the total energy in an isolated system is a conserved
achieving a significant reduction in the rate of the loss
analyze what the decline of two selected
quantity.
species would do to the web’s available energy. of biodiversity?
Vocabulary
primary producers, consumers, food chain, trophic level, Ocean Food Web activity
food web
A. conferences have not been held to discuss
this issue
B. there is no evidence that diverse
communities are more efficient at using
resources than those that are less diverse
C. scientists cannot actually measure how fast
biodiversity is disappearing
D. scientists have already identified most
organisms and evaluated their use to
humans
Resources
Student Text:
Student Misconceptions:
Deeper Learning Opportunities:
Textbook: Marine Biology, Castro-Huber, 8th Edition,
Interactive food web:
Chapter 1
7 Symbiotic Wonders of the 7 Seas
http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2009/02/01/symbioticfish-animals-sea-ocean-water/
http://www.mdsg.umd.edu/topics/foodwebs/food-web
Concept: Nutrient Recycling
SC.912.L.17.10
Diagram and explain the biogeochemical cycles of an
ecosystem, including water, carbon, and nitrogen cycle.
Driving Questions:
How are nutrients recycled within the marine
environment?
Student Investigations:
Classroom Aquaponics: Exploring Nitrogen
Cycling in a Closed System
Vocabulary
Sample Formative Assessment Task:
Draw a diagram/illustration of a marine
ecosystem through each of the following:
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Nitrogen cycle
Carbon cycle
 Water cycle
http://csip.cornell.edu/Curriculum_Resources
/CEIRP/Aquaponics.pdf
water cycle, carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, nitrogen
fixation, phosphorous cycle
Resources
Student Text:
Nutrient Cycling in an Ecosystem
http://www.ecologyedu.com/education_resources/nu
trient_cycling_in_an_ecosystem.html
Fisheries and Nutrient Cycling
https://1drop.wordpress.com/fisheries-and-nutrientcycling-what-is-the-link/
Student Misconceptions:
Deeper Learning Opportunities:
Global Change by
AUTEL
https://appsto.r
e/us/ax1B5.i