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Grade Level (s): 6 - 8
Introduction: Some people like to go to the Florida Keys to swim with the dolphins, some people earn their livelihood by fishing for snapper or grouper. These marine animals capture our attention and our imagination We in Miami and the rest of the world have a connection to all the living things of the ocean, from microscopic floating plants to the huge blue whale. Small or large, plant or animal, the ocean’s living things attest to its biodiversity. Each ecosystem consists of a group of living and non-living things that interact with one another.
The natural resources and natural beauty inherent in the Florida Keys maintains the most extensive living coral reefs in the United States. The Keys, located on the southernmost tip of the Florida peninsula run from Key Biscayne to 90 miles north of Cuba. These coral reefs are tinted with a vast array of marine organisms and plants. This ecosystem contains a variety of life more abundant than any other. The seagrass meadows and the mangrove islands are rich in biological communities supporting high levels of diversity.
Learner Objectives:
Students will be able to identify producers and consumers from four marine ecosystems.
Florida Sunshine State Standards: Science: SC.F.1.3.2., SC.G.1.3.2., Math: MA.E.1.3.1.
Competency-based Curriculum: Science: Sci.M/J1 II-1-A, Sci.M/J3 II-1-AII, Math: M/J IV-2-A, M/J3 VI-2-A
Materials
Globe or Map
Playing cards to be copied and cut out
Heavy stock paper for photocopying or pasting cards
Scissors
Activity Procedures:
- Motivate students by rapidly spinning a globe and asking them to approximate how much of the Earth is covered by ocean. Ask them to think about the different types of marine organisms and habitats that must exist.
- Have students locate some ecosystems on a globe. Great Barrier Reef in Australia (coral reef), Monterey Bay, California (kelp forest), Mid-Atlantic ridge (hydrothermal vent).
- Ask students to name the producers and consumers from each ecosystem.
- In advance, copy three pages of playing cards and paste copies on heavy stock paper. Cut each sheet into nine cards along the guide lines. Each complete deck will have twenty-seven playing cards and is suitable for a group of four students. After cards are cut out they can be laminated or stored in plastic sleeves.
- Divide students into groups of four or fewer. Pass out a deck of cards to each group. Emphasize to the students that the object of the game is collect all five cards from one ecosystem. Tell students that only five organisms have been chosen from each ecosystem, but many other organisms make up bigger food webs. Read through the Disconnect and Reconnect cards to make sure students understand how they are used in the game.
- As the students start playing, circulate among the groups. As a player is carrying out the directions on a Disconnect card, have that student explain to you the relationship of the organism within that ecosystem and tell in their own words the impact of the card.
- As a student from one group wins, you might interrupt play to let that student describe the winning hand to the class. Use this as a jumping off point to talk about how food chains and food webs connect the producers and consumers in an ecosystem. The winner from each group should lay out the winning cards to form a food web for other players to see.
- Ask students to fill in their charts using their cards. The student’s food chain and food webs should show a pattern of producers first, then primary consumers (those that eat producers directly), followed by predators. If the students use arrows the connect the organisms, the arrows should mean “eaten by”.
- When the students are finished with their pages, discuss which of the Disconnect cards prevented them from winning. It could possibly lead to a discussion on overfishing. Overfishing has become such a large problem in some areas that the government has to limit or stop fishing until certain populations recover. Salmon can be mentioned as being at risk.
- Ask students if they’ve ever played the card game “Go Fish”. Then ask them why the game they have just played could be called “Don’t Go Fish”. They might answer that overfishing causes the reduction of loss of desirable and profitable species of fish or shellfish. It also disturbs the delicate balance of producers and consumers in each marine ecosystem. The purpose of the card game is to show how both natural events and human activities such as overfishing, can disturb this balance and break the links that connect species in an ecosystem.
Student Assessment:
Allow the student to answer critical thinking skills questions assigned by the teacher.
- Different habitats exist throughout the Florida Keys which include seagrass and coral. Where do these specific habitats occur in relation to one another? Are they in the same place, right next to each other, or separated from one another?
- Refer to the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Map: http://www.fknms.nos.noaa.gov/researchmonitoring/map.html
- Explain what animal species might be found in both the coral reefs and the seagrass habitats.
- What do you think would happen to these species if one of the habitats suddenly became polluted or destroyed?
Activity Extensions:
Ask students to imagine that they make their living catching fish, as some of their parents did or do at this time. Ask them to think about how they would feel if the government set a limit on their catch.
Home Learning Activity:
Construct a food web that contains at least 3 food chains.
Vocabulary: hydrothermal vent, biodiversity, producer, consumer, food chain, food web, ecosystem, marine ecosystem, primary consumer, overfishing
References:
http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa/ocean_planet/htnml
http://www.fknms.nos.noaa.gov/visitor_information/welcome.html
http://educate.si.edu/resources/lessons
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