Teacher Page

A worksheet that lists most of the quiz questions can be printed and given to the students before they take the quiz. Or the worksheet can be used instead of the quiz.

This website can easily be expanded to include other objectives related to ecosystems including:

  1. Energy and matter within the ecosystems:  (Where does it come from?  How is it transferred to chemical energy?  How does energy leave the ecosystem?)
  2. What are the relationships between organisms found within an ecosystem?
  3. Encourage learners to create a habitat (i.e., Butterfly Garden WebQuest)
  4. How does creating a butterfly garden help or hinder the ecosystem?
  5. Food chains and food webs in the ecosystem
  6. Changing physical characteristics of the ecosystem


Academic Standards Addressed

Grade Five:  Science:  Life Sciences:  Diversity and Interdependence of Life

4.  Summarize that organisms can survive only in ecosystems in which their needs can be met (e.g., food, water, shelter, air, carrying capacity and waste disposal).  The world has different ecosystems and distinct ecosystems support the lives of different types of organisms.

5.  Support how an organism's patterns of behavior are related to the nature of that organism's ecosystem, including the kinds and numbers of other organisms present, the availability of food and resources, and the changing physical characteristics of the ecosystem.

6.  Analyze how all organisms, including humans, cause changes in their ecosystems and how these changes can be beneficial, neutral or detrimental (e.g., beaver ponds, earthworm burrows, grasshoppers eating plants, people planting and cutting trees and people introducing a new species).


Useful Resources

Benbow, Ann, and Colin Mably. Nature’s Secret Habitats Science Projects (Real Life Science Experiments). Berkeley Heights: Enslow Elementary, 2009. Print.

Davis, Barbara J.. Biomes and Ecosystems (Gareth Stevens Vital Science: Earth Science). Milwaukee: Gareth Stevens Publishing, 2007. Print.

Rompella, Natalie. Ecosystems (Science Fair Projects). Chicago: Heinemann Library, 2007. Print.