Unit 08 · Ecology
The big ideas here are how life connects at scale: energy flowing through trophic levels, matter cycling through the carbon, nitrogen, and water cycles, populations growing and leveling off, the interactions that knit communities together, and the human impact reshaping all of it. Mastery means reading ecological data and explaining how energy, matter, and populations behave.
| Criterion | Not yet | Approaching | Mastered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Energy flow & trophic levels | Cannot order a food chain. | Builds a chain but misses the 10% energy loss. | Traces energy through levels and explains loss at each step. |
| Nutrient cycles | Cannot describe a cycle. | Names a cycle but misses key reservoirs or fluxes. | Traces carbon, nitrogen, or water through its reservoirs. |
| Population dynamics | Confuses growth patterns. | Knows exponential vs logistic; vague on limits. | Explains carrying capacity and limiting factors from a graph. |
| Community interactions | Cannot classify interactions. | Names interactions but applies them unevenly. | Identifies predation, competition, and symbiosis with effects. |
| Human impact & data interpretation | Cannot read ecological data. | Reads a graph but draws weak conclusions. | Interprets data and links human activity to ecosystem change. |
| Integration (cross-domain) | Treats the science as isolated facts; makes no cross-domain connection. | Names a link to history, reading, or writing but cannot defend why it matters. | Connects the unit to its anchor across History · Reading · Writing (plus chosen electives) and defends why the connection matters. |
“About ninety percent of the energy is lost at each level, so there are far fewer hawks than mice — that’s why the pyramid narrows. Take out the top predator and the herbivores boom and overgraze; the whole web feels it.”
“Big animals eat small animals and the food chain goes up. Pollution is bad for the environment.”
You demonstrate this unit through field or data-analysis tasks — sampling, graphing, and interpreting real numbers — plus oral checks where you explain the patterns. A criterion is mastered when you can reason from data, not just define a term.
A 5-page clipboard packet — unit overview, key terms, the mastery rubric, anchor examples, and a score sheet you can print and grade against.