S4L1Students will investigate the living and non-living parts of an ecosystem and explore the roles of producers, consumers, and decomposers.

Essential Question:

What are the non-living parts of the ecosystem?

• What is an ecosystem?

• There can be lots of ecosystems in a biome.  An ecosystem is all the living and non-living things in a certain area and how they interact.

Ecosystem: Non-living Parts

• Non-living things:• Air• Water• Sunlight• Shade• Rocks• Dead trees• Mud/dirt/soil

What are the different types of ecosystems?

• Polar Ecosystem• -ice covers the land• -very little sunlight• -temperatures are

very cold• -polar bears live

there• -bears eat and hunt

animals from the ocean water

Desert Ecosystem

• -very warm temperatures during the day and cold during the night

• -very little rain• -sandy soil• -plants send their roots

far into the ground to find water

• -animals hunt for food at night when it is cooler

Rainforest Ecosystem

-stays warm all

year

-receives a lot of rain

-many types of

plants and animals

Prairie Ecosystem

-grassy area

-few or no trees

-more rain than desert

but less than forest

-winters are cold,

but summers are hot

-animals eat grass and seeds

Essential Question:

• What are the Living Parts of an Ecosystem?

Environment:-everything that surrounds and

affects a living thing

• Trees

• Bushes

• Water

• Grass

• Plants

• Animals

Communities in an Ecosystem

*A community is all the living things in an ecosystem.

* It is made up of different

populations.

Populations are all the

members of one kind of

plant or animal.

Relationships in an Ecosystem

☺food chain- the path of food energy in an ecosystem as one living thing eats another

☺food web- two or more food chains that overlap

☺predator- an animal that hunts other animals for food

☺prey- an animal that is hunted for food but other animals

☺interdependence- relationship between living things where one living thing benefits from another

What are Producers?

• Producers are living things that make their own food.

• Plants are producers.

• They use energy from the sunlight to make food.

• When an animal eats a plant, the energy is transferred to the animal.

What are Consumers?

Consumers are animals that get energy by eating plants or other animals.

REVIEW

• A squirrel is an organism that is a consumer.

• A decrease in one population in a community might cause a decrease in a different population because the two populations are interdependent.

• All producers are alike because they make their own food.

• A terrarium is set up to model an ecosystem. The terrarium has a rock, a heat lamp, water, soil, a salamander, plants and an overhead light. The part that models the Sun is the heat lamp and the overhead light.

REVIEW• All the deer in the forest make up a

population.

• A bird does not benefit from eating the roots of a tree.

• Sunlight is a nonliving part of the ecosystem.

• A tomato is stored energy gained from sunlight.

• All living things in an ecosystem make up a community.

Review• A tree gains the energy it needs to live from

sunlight.• Birds are an organism that does NOT use

energy to make their own food.• It is true that plants and animals depend on

sunlight. • The following is an idea, not an observation:

The plant might grow better outdoors. • An ecosystem is all the living and nonliving

things in a certain area that interact with each other. (This includes plants and animals).

• Two organisms depend on each other, for example: birds feed on leeches and scraps of food in a crocodile’s mouth and the crocodile benefits by having its teeth cleaned.

Review

• Consumers gain energy by eating producers or other consumers.

• The producers in a pond are the tiny plants and algae.

• Populations make up communities.• Flowering plants depend on butterflies

when butterflies carry pollen from flower to flower.

• Plants are producers.