Bell Ringer – 4/28/14  How do living and nonliving parts of the Earth interact and affect the survival of organisms? Give an example.

Today  Wrap-up Unit 3: Genetics  Peer grade quests from Friday  Submit any missing assignments (alien DNA, survey extra credit)  Begin Unit 4: Ecology  Intro to ecology  Independent work: building vocabulary

Ecology  We’ve seen the root “–ology” before (biology)  It means “the study of”  “Eco” comes from the Greek “oikos,” which means “house”  Ecology is the study of the relationships that organisms have with each other and with the environment  In other words, studying our “house”

Ecology  Turn to pg. 64 – 65 in textbook  Study Figure 3-1  Complete In Your Notebook:  Draw a circle and label it “Me”  Draw 5 concentric circles and label them with the appropriate level of organization  Describe your population, community, etc. as well as provide the definition for each term in your circles  10 – 12 minutes to complete

For those who forgot…  Concentric circles look like this: ME

 Based on what you see, in your notes write definitions for “ biotic ” and “ abiotic.”

Environmental Factors  Biotic: all living things in an ecosystem  Ex: plants, animals, microorganisms  Abiotic: non-living things in an ecosystem  Ex: temperature, sunlight, humidity, water, soil, mineral nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur)

For the rest of class/homework:  Read all of 3.2 Energy, Producers, and Consumers (pgs. 69 – 72)  take notes – write important points (bolded or colored text)  make a list of vocab + definitions