Aquatic Ecosystems (aka Aquatic Biomes)

This Webquest is part of a Ecology Unit.  Researching biomes and aquatic ecosystems can serve as an introduction to a more in depth study of biodiversity as well as promote a general environmental awareness in students.

Standards

New York State: The Living Environment, Grades 9-10:
Standard 4: Students will understand and apply scientific concepts, principles, and theories pertaining to the physical setting and living environment and recognize the historical development of ideas in science.

1.1a Populations can be categorized by the function they serve. Food webs identify the relationships among producers, consumers, and decomposers carrying out either autotrophic or heterotrophic nutrition.

1.1b An ecosystem is shaped by the nonliving environment as well as its interacting species. The world contains a wide diversity of physical conditions, which creates a variety of environments.

1.1e Ecosystems, like many other complex systems, tend to show cyclic changes around a state of approximate equilibrium.

6.1a Energy flows through ecosystems in one direction, typically form the Sun, through photosynthetic organisms including green plants and algae, to herbivores to carnivores and decomposers.

6.1e In any particular environment, the growth and survival of organisms depend on the physical conditions including light intensity, temperature range, mineral availability, soil/rock type, and relative acidity (pH).

6.3c A stable ecosystem can be altered, either rapidly or slowly, through the activities of organisms (including humans), or through climatic changes or natural disasters. The altered ecosystem can usually recover through gradual changes back to a point of long-term stability.