1. How Ecosystems Work
Chapter 3

2. Quote
“You could cover the whole world with asphalt but sooner or later green grass would break through”
What does this quote mean?
Does the author seem to think this ability represents something good or bad about the living world?
What do you think this tendency says about the natural world and humans relation to it?

3. Ecolog
What does sunlight have to do with the amount of food available to a hawk, which only eats mean?
How is it possible that an atom of nitrogen in your sandwich was once part of a dinosaur’s body?

4. Recipe for what? ½ bathtub full of oxygen 50 glasses of water
½ cup sugar
½ cup calcium
1/10 thimble full of salt
A pinch of the following: Phosphorus, potassium, nitrogen, sulfur, magnesium, iron, and a mystery ingredient

5. Questions What is the mystery ingredient?
Where does this ingredient come from?

6. Energy Look at the pictures on page 56
How does the wolf depend on the sun?
What would happen if the grass did not get enough sun and eventually died?

7. Terms Producer – an organism that makes its own food (autotroph)
Consumer – organisms that get their energy by eating other organisms (heterotrophs)

8. Table on page 57
Herbivore – consumers that eat only producers (plant eaters)
Carnivores – consumers that eat only consumers (meat eaters)
Omnivores – consumers that eat both producers and other consumers
Decomposers – consumers that get their food by breaking down dead organisms

9. Case Study
Read the case study and answer the questions

10. Terms
Cellular Respiration – process of breaking down food to yield energy
Photosynthesis – reverse of cellular respiration utilized by plants

11. Terms
Food chain – a sequence in which energy is transferred from one organism to the next
Food web – similar to a food chain, but more accurate showing all of the feeding relationships

13. Terms
Trophic level – each step in the transfer of energy through an ecosystem
Similar to buying a CD
CD cost’s $15, $5 goes to the store that you bought it from, $5 goes to the record company that produces the band, $2 goes to the band’s agent, and the band gets $3

14. Neature Walk
Write down as many plant and animal species that you see on this neature walk
Try to be very exact in your list, don’t just say bird, or bug, name them what you think they are
You need to have roughly things

15. Neature Walk
Now make a food web of your list

16. Section Review
Answer the section review questions

17. Water Ecosystem Water ecosystem demo How do the organisms survive?
Where do they get their food?
Where do they get their oxygen?

18. Water Cycle
Water Cycle – water moving throughout earth’s layers

19. Carbon Cycle

20. Nitrogen Cycle
Nitrogen-fixing bacteria – only organisms to use nitrogen gas directly from the atmosphere

21. Section Review
Do the section review on page 65

22. Poem Life Bountiful Bright Growing Cycling Changing
Sun Plant Animal Nutrient
Sinking Decaying Fading
Scarce Dark
Death
Is this poem an adequate summary for this section?

23. Poem
Choose two opposite that you learned in this section and write a poem following this format:
Noun
Adjective adjective
Participle participle participle
Noun noun noun noun

24. What if
Imagine that this school is bulldozed and a tall fence is put up surrounding the school
What would it look like in 1 year?
5 years?
100 years?
1000 years?

25. Terms
Succession – a regular pattern of changes over time in the types of species in a community
Climax community – the community that eventually forms if left undisturbed
Secondary succession – succession that occurs on an area where an ecosystem had previously been
Mt. St. Helens

26. Questions
Why is it important when clearing land to preserve patches of the original habitat?
How does this work in controlled burns?

27. Terms
Pioneers – the first organisms to colonize any newly available area and start the process of succession
Primary Succession – succession that occurs on surfaces where no ecosystem existed before
New islands, glacier retreat

28. Case Study
Read the case study and answer the questions on pages 68-69

29. Section Review
Do the section review on page 70

30. Chapter Review Re-answer the ecolog questions
Do the chapter review questions 1 – 23
Read pages