Ecosystems

What is an ecosystem?

An ecosystem is a place and the living things that live there.

An ecosystem is made up by:

• Living things: They born, grow, eat, breathe and reproduce.  We have two big groups: Plants and Animals.
• Non-living things: do not eat or grow. They are for example: air, water, soil, minerals...

 Audio
 (If you cannot open the sound file, download the VLC program here: download VLC )

There are big ecosystems like the savannah, the desert or the oceans. Even the Earth (our planet) can be considered the biggest ecosystem.






Other ecosystems are small like a pond or a river.




An ecosystem that we can find near of us is the Forest ecosystem: In a forest, there are plants like trees, bushes and grasses. There are insects and other kind of invertebrates animals such as beetles, ladybirds, butterflies, worms or spiders. There are vertebrates animals like squirrels, birds, mice, deers, owls or wolves.

 Other very common Ecosystem is the Sea: It is the biggest ecosystem of the Earth. In the sea, there are plants like seaweeds, invertebrates animals such as jelly fishes, crubs, mussels and octopuses; even vertebrates animals like fishes, dolphins and whales. Almost all of them live in the high sea. In the deep sea there are very little food, so very few animals can live there.





            In an ecosystem is very important the FOOD CHAIN or FOOD WEB: It is when an animal eat other animals or plants and it is eaten by other animals bigger. For example: herbivores animals (like rabbits) eat plants, carnivores animals (like eagles or hawks) eat this herbivores animals (rabbits) and some of these carnivores animals are eaten by other carnivores bigger.






The best video filmed by a tourist:

The same video translated to spanish

Activity to use in class with the Interactive Digital Board (IWB)

Here there is an activity for teachers to use in Science class with the Interactive WhiteBoard, as well known as Interactive Digital Board. This activity is created by two teachers at CRP Sant Martí, Barcelona during year 2012-13. To download the file, click the picture or the link below.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8gthhw8nhhplclu/Ecosystems_science_project.notebook

Videos to watch and learn.

Now, you can watch some videos about it to obtain more information.

Video about ecosystems and food chains.

Video about components of the ECOSYSTEMS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWPj2IkeklI

Here you are a video in Spanish.

in Spanish: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPFGdTE_nas

Animals

ANIMALS

Animals...

They need:

• Water: All animals need water. Most animals live on land although some of them live in water; they are aquatic animals like fishes and dolphins. 

• Food: All animals eat other living things. Depending of what kind of food they eat, we can classify animals in Herbivores (eat plants), carnivores (eat other animals) and omnivores (eat plants and animals).

• The right temperature: Some animals live in very hot places and other animals live in very cold places. Their bodies are adapted to this habitat

Classification of animals
We can classify animals using different criteria:

• If they have skeleton: Vertebrates or Invertebrates
• the way they are born: viviparous or oviparous
• The food they eat: herbivores, carnivores or omnivores.
• The way they move: walk, fly, swim or crawl along the ground

Most part of information and images are taken from the book: Essential Science 4. Science, Geography and History (2006). Santillana Education, S.L / Richmond Publishing