Curated OER
Carrying Capacity
Young biologists identify how plants and animals are affected by changes in their ecosystem and environment. The concepts of succession, maintenance of habitats, interrelationships, and adaptation are all discussed. This well-developed...
Curated OER
How Many Penguins Does It Take? Studying Carrying Capacity and Limiting Factors
How does a population's habitat determine the size of that population? Teach learners about carrying capacity and limiting factors with an engaging roleplay activity. Class members pose as a colony of penguins who must gather food amidst...
Curated OER
The Lesson of the Kaibab
Students plot the Kaibab deer population from 1905 to 1939 and analyze the changes over time. In this populations lesson plan, students investigate the causes of changing populations of the Kaibab deer and they find the carrying capacity...
Teach Engineering
Biomes and Population Dynamics - Balance Within Natural Systems
How large can a population become? The fifth installment of a nine-part unit teaches young ecologists about limiting factors that determine the carrying capacity of species in the Sonoran Desert. Here is a PowerPoint to help present this...
Curated OER
Regents High School Examination: Living Environment 2010
This exam touches upon every topic within the typical first year biology course.. A broad variety of question styles give high schoolers every opportunity to show what they know. Why start from scratch when a comprehensive final exam is...
Curated OER
Population Biology - Biology Teaching Thesis
Learners explore the effects of different density-dependent and density-independent factors on population growth. They explore how the interactions of organisms can affect population growth. Students explore the pattern of population...
Curated OER
Is There Room for Everybody?
Third graders examine the capacity of animals able to live in one habitat. In this habitat lesson plan, 3rd graders play a game that shows the food chain and the interactions between animals in an area. Students discover that food is a...
Michigan State University
Bug Lyphe!
Introduce ecology classes to biodiversity and interdependence in ecosystems with a PowerPoint presentation. Then, they get up-close and personal with the invertebrate world by collecting insects, classifying them, and graphing their...
Curated OER
Carrying Capacity of Ecosystems
Students define population and carrying. In this algebra instructional activity, students explore exponential growth and decay based on animals and things that grow or decrease exponentially. They graph their findings and discuss their...
Science 4 Inquiry
The Ups and Downs of Populations
Life has its ups and downs ... especially if you're an animal! Biology scholars engage in a population study through an inquiry-based lesson. Pupils work together to explore the factors that affect deer populations, then examine the...
Curated OER
Vocabulary-Populations
In this populations worksheet, learners are given 4 terms to define, they draw a representation of each term and they indicate what they are reminded of by the term. The topics include populations, communities, limiting factors and carry...
Curated OER
Population Game
Young scholars assess the carrying capacity of the land. For this animal population lesson, students participate in a role-playing scenario to discover the factors affecting animal populations.
Curated OER
Population Biology
Students define the following terms: predation, competition, carrying capacity and population. They can explain the patterns of growth and the limitations of growth. Students explain the difference between density-dependent and...
Curated OER
Ecosystem Interdependence
Students outline a scenario demonstrating ecosystem interdependence. They explain the effects of this change according to the food web. They give a positive example such as increased rain and have the students call out answers to your...
Curated OER
Finding the Basal Area of a Forest Plot to Determine Stocking Levels
Students use graphs and plots to measure the basal area and stocking levels. For this graphing instructional activity students work in the field the use their data to help them complete a lab activity.
Curated OER
Maintaining Strong Fisheries
Students play a game about the life cycle of a blue crab in order to witness the causes of changes in the crab population and discuss what a resource manager could do to keep a stable crab population. Students then create a game titled...
Curated OER
Investigating Space Requirement of Seed Plants
Students use scientific methods to investigate the effects of overpopulation of seed plants on growth in a limited living space. Students relate seed plant population findings to that of other organisms.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Population Dynamics
Will human population growth always be exponential, or will we find a limiting factor we can't avoid? Young scientists learn about both exponential and logistic growth models in various animal populations. They use case studies to...
Illustrative Mathematics
Logistic Growth Model, Abstract Version
Here learners get to flex some serious algebraic muscles through an investigation of logistic growth. The properties of the constant terms in the logistic growth formula are unraveled in a short but content-dense activity. Moving...
Space Awareness
Water is a Heat Sink
One of the key objectives of Europe's Copernicus Earth program is to monitor the temperatures of the oceans and seas on Earth. Young scholars learn the effects of different heat capacities through two experiments. These experiments...
Curated OER
Exploring Ecology
Students explore the basics of ecology through numerous hands-on and relevant activities. They participate in an online food chain demonstration, which explores food web dynamics. They dissect owl pellets, examine the prey's bones, and...
Curated OER
White-tailed Deer: Beauty or Beast?
Students use study guides and videos to discuss the positive and negative impacts of white-tailed deer populations. In this wildlife management activity, students view slides and discuss the natural history and value of deer as a...
Curated OER
Population Biology Case Study
Students are focused on the big question: What makes a population grow and how could that growth stop? They use these concepts to help answer the big question: carry capacity, density dependent v. density, independent factors, predation...
Curated OER
Making Connections, Linking Population and the Environment
Young scholars find out that all habitats have a carrying capacity. They explore how the world's human population has grown markedly in the 20th century, and that humans impact environmental health. Students investigate that people can...