LS2+(5-6)+-+7

LS2 (5-6) - 7 **Students demonstrate an understanding of recycling in an ecosystem by …**

7a explaining the processes of precipitation, evaporation, condensation as parts of the water cycle.

7b completing a basic food web for a given ecosystem

=(7b only)=

What ideas to students need to understand before they can address the topics described above?
An understanding of what eats what in an ecosystem. Energy pyramid- producers -> consumers -> decomposers Separate food chains and how they can interlink All energy in an ecosystem begins with the sun

What misconceptions are students likely to have about these topics?

 * 1) Stronger organisms have more energy.
 * 2) There are more herbivores because they have more offspring.
 * 3) A species high on the food web is a predator to everything below it.
 * 4) Energy accumulates in an ecosystem so that a top predator has all the energy from the organisms below it.
 * 5) Carnivores can exist in a plant free world if their prey reproduce enough.
 * 6) The food that is eaten and used as a source of energy is part of the good chain; food that is synthesized into the body of the eater is now food for the next level.

What phenomena and representations help students understand these topics?
Food web diagrams Videos

What activities or activity sequences can be used to address these GSEs?
Demonstrate examples of food chains using cards with organisms on them and string Write about how energy flows throughout an ecosystem.

How can students demonstrate that they understand these GSEs?
Six Facets of Understanding: 1. Explanation- based on data, experiments, observations. Create a food web.

2. Interpretation- the means by which scientists make sense of data, making connections. Describe a food web in terms of how it shows loss of energy throughout an ecosystem.

3. Application- using knowledge to solve new problems - Do not give the answer. - Present a related, but challenging task to explain - Point towards use of prior knowledge - Hints to provide a scaffold  4. Perspective- recognizing that multiple interpretations are possible, not jumping to conclusions and consider all alternatives, **knowing the importance of an idea-** teachers should design their lessons so that students come away knowing the importance - “Valuing the discipline is required for knowing and understanding the discipline”

5. Empathy- Four levels: 1. Struggle to validate the ideas and theories that they’re learning 2. Understand and appreciate the ways that science has changed people’s ways of thinking over time about the natural world. 3. Teachers need to grasp how and why students are thinking as they do <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.75in;">4. Open- mindedly embrace ideas that seem strange <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">6. Self-knowledge- examination of one’s own ideas and reasoning in order to advance them