Throughout the course of this project, we were asked to pick a specific ecosystem and research in depth on the workings inside of it. In order to be able to do this, we were taught many different subjects about how an ecosystem interacts with itself. These include learning about carrying capacity, abiotic and biotic functions, the carbon, nitrogen, and water cycle, individual to biosphere functions, symbiosis, biomass, food webs, limiting factors, the disturbance of homeostasis, and biodiversity. We could then figure out how us as humans change the environments that we had chosen, whether it be good or bad. Our ecosystem was Borneo, an island in Malaysia, made up mostly of rainforest and filled with thousands of unique, endangered species. The task given to us was to figure out a way to identify the problems affecting our environment and convenient ways to deal with it. There were a few driving questions we had to answer, including:
We then had to make an action plan of some sort to help our ecosystem and present it to the class. Our group chose to spread awareness about the harms that humans present to Borneo and to advocate for donations.
- How do humans have a lasting impact on species or populations and their environment?
- How can we minimize humans impact on the environment?
- How do we prioritize the solutions to minimize human impact on the environment; given social, environmental, and economic factors?
We then had to make an action plan of some sort to help our ecosystem and present it to the class. Our group chose to spread awareness about the harms that humans present to Borneo and to advocate for donations.
Populations
A wide variety of plants and animals live inside of Borneo. They all interact with each other in unique ways, leading to a diverse population within.
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Matter and Energy
There are a few major cycles of energy throughout the Earth that play a large role in the interactions between all living things. These include the water, nitrogen, and carbon cycles, as well as the flow of energy through the trophic levels.
The flow of energy through the trophic levels follows the path from the sun to the producers. These are usually plants or some bacteria that process sunlight to create energy. They are eaten by the primary consumers, the herbivores, who are then eaten by secondary consumers, either omnivores or carnivores. At the top of the food chain, there are the tertiary or top consumers, who usually have no other predators. All of these levels, when they die, their remains are processed by the decomposers and turned to heat. Energy moves from one organism to another when it is eaten, however, only 10% of the energy is transferred from one trophic level to the next, the rest used for that animal's natural processes or turned to heat.
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The transfer of matter through the carbon cycle uses many living beings and natural processes in order to maintain a balance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. However, we as humans are pushing that balance as more and more of our technology is pumping carbon into the atmosphere. We play an important part in burning fossil fuels to supply the atmosphere with needed carbon, but too much isn't a good thing. This cycle happens continuously throughout the biosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere and is extremely important to the processes of life.
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The transfer of matter through the water cycle is one of the first things that is taught to younger kids, for a good reason to. It is responsible for the flow and reuse of all water throughout the Earth and needed for us to survive. Everything on our planet needs water to survive and this cycle helps to bring that water to everyone who needs it. The image above shows the transfer of water through an enclosed system and some of the processes involved.
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The nitrogen cycle is responsible for the nutrients plants need in order to be able to grow. These complex processes use bacteria, lightning, and plants, among others, in order to effectively transfer nitrogen throughout the ecosystem.
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Biomass
Biomass is the total mass of organisms in a given area and any plant or animal material used for energy production, heat production, or in various industrial processes as raw material for a range of products. An ecological pyramid shows the relationship between consumers and producers at different trophic levels in an ecosystem. The pyramid shows which level has the most energy and the highest number of organisms and the relative amounts of energy or matter contained at each trophic level. Producers have the most biomass in a system, while the tertiary consumer has the least.
This process can easily be shown in a food chain, where each species in an ecosystem is easily shown in their relation to one another
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Environmental Impact
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Ecology
Organization in ecology:
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Relationships between species:
Interacting with environment:
Biosphere includes:
The study of ecology can be done through:
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Organisms in an ecosystem obtain energy in two different ways:
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In the trophic levels, energy moves flows from the bottom to the top levels through the different steps in a food chain or web:
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Our Project
The influence of humans on the environment of Borneo is ruining the unique habitat that it provides for thousands of species. We are destroying the well balanced homeostasis, or the state of steady physical and chemical conditions maintained by living beings, of Borneo and making it difficult for these species to survive.
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This document contains all of our background research and sources that we obtained over the course of this project, the presentation slides with all of the different cycle diagrams is listed below.
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Our final product included flyers that we posted around the school and a website that we directed all of the readers to linked below
Reflection
This project was actually quite productive for me and our group worked well together as a whole. While some of the time, groups close to us were quite loud, making it hard to work, we still got a lot done. Everyone pitched in their part in my own opinion and contributed to the project. There was a bit of trouble fitting Kiki into the group when she decided to join, but her help was welcome and played a part in our final project. The best parts of our project were the finished website, as I was especially proud of its relatively sleek design and the diagrams of the cycles, which we created ourselves. The hardest parts were probably managing our time, as we had to do many different projects at the same time, such as the biome activity. Another would be the fact that although you can share websites on Weebly with other people so they have admin access, only one person can actually be working on the website at one time. This brought down our productivity by a large margin as only one person could access it at once. I learned a bit more about the valuable skills of leadership and empathy, listening more to my group mates on how they are doing, making sure they aren't over or underworked. If I had to fix anything, it would be the lack of time we had to put together our final presentation, as it wasn't the best we could have done. I also had a headache on the day of the presentation, so it was hard for me to focus on anything specifically.