Sustainable Food Web (from Living Environment Bootcamp)

LEQ: How do you create self sustaining ecosystems?

Objectives: Students will be able to

• Make a food web
• Design an ecological pyramid
• Predict an ecosystem’s response to change
• Read population curves
• Identify Symbiotic Relationships
• Demonstrate understanding of different Niches

Materials:

• Hunger Games: Blowing up the Supplies Video
• Living inside a Biosphere Video
• Ecology Lab Handout (1 per pair)

Lesson

1. Have students watch the video, “Hunger Games: Blowing up the Supplies”
   1. In groups, discuss the effects that destroying the food supply would have on the community living within the arena.
   2. Determine what emotions would you feel if you were to be sealed in an arena in which you have no outside food or supplies.
   3. How would you grow everything you need and recycle your waste in order to survive?
2. In 1991 – 1993 Eight people were sealed in a dome about the size of two football fields for a period of almost two years. They have no outside food or supplies. They must grow everything they need and recycle their waste in order to survive. They called it BIOSPHERE 2. Have students watch the video, “Living inside a Biosphere”
   1. With your group, write down 10 ways how your daily activities impact the environment negatively and 10 ways it impacts the environment positively.
   2. Assess the statement below to explain how it is relevant to what you saw in “Living in a Biosphere” and “Hunger Games” videos.
      1. The relationship among living things is complex, interconnected, and based on resource allocation. Changes in one resource level can impact others via a ripple effect.
3. In pairs, complete the Ecology Lab handout. Here students will need to design a sustainable ecosystem considering the following:
   1. The food web, symbiotic relationships, and population

Discussion

The World Food Summit states that food security “exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”.

1. With your group, explain how sustainable ecosystems affect our food security
2. How would climate change affect our food security within an ecosystem?
3. How would an expanding global population affect our food security within an ecosystem?
4. How would pollution affect our food security within an ecosystem?