WebQuest: Create Life

Process

 

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This is your game plan for this project. If you have any questions or need more information, check the resources page or e-mail me.
Each part of this project should be on a separate page of your PowerPoint presentation. Good luck and happy Questing!
1. As a group choose a habitat for your ecosystem. This can be anywhere. Be creative!  It does not need to be a real place...for example you can make up a new planet or even use your bedroom or locker!
  A. location
B. climate (average temperatures, rainfall, etc.)
C. topography (mountains, hills, valleys, etc.)
2. You will be required to create a few of the following: (Divide up the organisms among the group. There should be at least 3 organisms from each different trophic levels)
  A. Producer
B. Primary Consumer (Herbivore)
C. Secondary Consumer (Carnivore)
D.  Tertiary Consumer
E. Decomposer
3. Your mission is to design an organism and artistically show it to the class.
Make sure you explain all of the following:
 

A. physical characteristics (describe & draw)
B. range & distribution (where in the ecosystem does it live)
C. population size
D. reproductive behavior (live young, eggs, mating rituals, care of offspring, etc.)
E. nutritional requirements
F. niche description (esp. position in the food web)
G. sensitivity to environmental factors
H. any symbiotic relationships with other organisms within the ecosystem
*Make sure your organisms can survive in the habitat!
4. Put it all together! The ecosystem including organisms, the food web and the ecological pyramids will be drawn to show the relationships between the organisms. Make sure you check each other's work to be sure that it all makes sense together.
You can draw by hand and scan in your images or use computer generated images made in Inspiration, Excel, Word, or drawing/paint/art generator programs.
5. How does it work? Put together a food web and ecological pyramids (numbers pyramid and energy pyramid) to show the interactions that will occur in your ecosystem.
6. Now that we have created a beautiful ecosystem, we are going to create a disturbance. The disturbance can be either man-made, natural, or a combination of the two. You choose. Be creative! (Please do not choose anything that would kill off ALL organisms, some part of the ecosystem should be able to survive the disturbance)
7. Identify the effect of the disturbance on each of the species in the ecosystem. Use the list below to help you make the following decisions:
  A. Extinct: species are completely destroyed
B. Endangered: Species are in great danger of going extinct
C. Threatened: species are in great danger of becoming endangered but not extinct
D. No expected change: number of species in ecosystem will remain the same
E. Increased: number of species will increase
8. Write an EIR. Report the changes that you expect to see in your ecosystem. Give methods for mitigation or correcting the changes and restoring the ecosystem. This report should be 3-4 pages double spaced in 12 point font. Be sure to include effects on the physical environment as well as every organism. Be sure to explain and give methods that might mitigate or repair the ecosystem back to the conditions before the disaster.