Ocean Ecology
Year Level: 7-9
Sorting Out: Sample Activities
Biological Diversity
The following table shows animal and plant phyla, the classes included within them and the characteristics of organisms that distinguish them from non-living matter. Encourage students to source as much information to complete the table below:
Evolution, natural selection and variation
The characteristics listed in the previous table are those traditionally ascribed to living organisms. However, it does not include an important feature of living organisms, namely their potential to change or evolve over generations.
- Ask the question “Are there any homogeneous environments in nature?”
- Challenge students to offer reasons for their replies and examples of ‘why or why not.’
- Invite students to consider a vertical section of the water column in and around a tropical reef ecosystem. Make the statement: “Environments contain within them gradients of conditions or of available resources.” Ask students to elaborate on what this statement means and to consider the question: “How could condition gradients and resource availability stimulate evolutionary processes or variations within species or communities?”
Invite the class to form pairs or small groups to prepare either a play, a multi-media presentation, a Power Point presentation or a report, that conveys detailed information about the major condition and/or resource factors that have stimulated evolutionary processes or variations within a specific marine species or community.
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