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Week 5 - Ecology

                                                         What did I learn this week? 

I learned more about ecology by examining the differences between food chains and food webs. The difference is that food chains follow a single path of how energy and matter move through an ecosystem. Food webs are more detailed and show relationships between each level of the food chain. We created our own ecosystem in class and my group decided to choose the Marine biome. I have attached our created ecosystem starting with the algae as our producer and ending with the shark as our apex predator. 

Are you able to relate what you learned to what you already knew? 
I kinda already knew about food chains and food webs but going over the definitions resolidified the idea that a food chain is one path and a food web gives the viewer a detailed description of the relationships between all levels of the food chain. I enjoyed learning more about the 10% rule as it was something my sophomore year biology teacher touched on but wasn't something that I felt very confident about. Dr. You broke it down on the whiteboard and it helped me to visualize it better!

How can you apply what you learned to your teaching in the future? 

During today's lab, we were able to explore different activities that talked about food webs and food chains. We used videos and the creation of our own food chains within biomes was a way to connect it all together and ended with a natural disaster scenario to spice things up and get students to practice their engineering skills. 


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