Exploring Ecosystems

Fifth grade is excited to be beginning our new science unit all about ecosystems!  For the next several weeks we'll be learning not only about the ecosystems of our planet, but the impact we has humans can have on them.  We started off our unit activating our schema about animals and the habitats they need to survive.  Students chose an animal they knew a lot about, identified where they lived and listed the different things that animal would need.  We already had a lot of background knowledge to build off of!

Once we had habitats in our mind we started to explore and research several different terrestrial (or land based) ecosystems.  Divvying up the work load and using our trusty chromebooks, our research began this morning!  At each team we researched an ecosystem we researched a habitat in accordance with our number.  1s researched the tundra, 2s the desert, 3s the temperate (deciduous) forest, and 4s focused on the grasslands.  All students researched the rain forest as it was the ecosystem we were most familiar with.

Next week we'll be ready to wrap up our research and share our findings with our teammates in an All Record Round Robin.  Once all of our information is gathered we can compare these different ecosystems and how animals and plants exist within them!