Grade 08 Science - EC: S8.A.1.3.4
Grade 08 Science - EC: S8.A.1.3.4
Continuum of Activities
The list below represents a continuum of activities: resources categorized by Standard/Eligible Content that teachers may use to move students toward proficiency. Using LEA curriculum and available materials and resources, teachers can customize the activity statements/questions for classroom use.
This continuum of activities offers:
- Instructional activities designed to be integrated into planned lessons
- Questions/activities that grow in complexity
- Opportunities for differentiation for each student’s level of performance
Grade Levels
8th Grade
Course, Subject
Science
Related Academic Standards / Eligible Content
Activities
- Define sustainability.
- In each stage of _____________, a plant community changes the ecosystem and makes it more suitable for new plant species.
- The population of owls and mice often follows a cycle. Explain how changes in one population leads to changes in the other population.
- Describe how wildfires are used today as a tool to manage ecosystems. Include at least two examples in your response.
- Compare and contrast primary succession to secondary succession.
Answer Key/Rubric
- Sustainability is living within our limits so a natural resource does not become depleted or destroyed.
- Succession
- Answers may include, but are not limited to:
Increase or decrease in the mouse population would result in a corresponding change in the owl population. If the mouse population decreased then there would be less food available for the owls so its population would also begin to decline. With fewer predators around the mouse population would start to grow then as more food became available the owl population would also increase.
- Acceptable responses might include, but not be limited to:
- the reduction of hazardous fuels
- the preparation of sites for seeding or planting
- the improvement of wildlife habitat; the disposal of logging debris
- disease control
- Answers may include, but are not limited to:
Primary succession occurs on surfaces, like bare rock, that have not previously supported any type of plant life. Lichens are the first plants to begin to grow. They slowly break down the rock and add organic matter to the ground which becomes soil that supports other types of plant life. Over time the plant life changes from lichens to grasses to small bushes and trees to a climax community.
Secondary succession occurs in areas that previously supported life. A wildfire, for example, destroys a forest. The plants may be gone but the soil remains. Seeds take root and a new community forms. Like primary succession, grasses appear followed by small bushes and trees ending with a climax community.
