Hello people!
This is my first blog post in PLP 9! I will be explaining how humans have impacted ecosystems across the world in a negative and positive way. I will also be discussing what we did, went well, what didn’t go so well and what I learnt throughout the project. I hope you guys enjoy!
Our project was split into 3 keystones:
Keystone 1 – An Interactive Scratch Game
I had to create a food web that shows how the different animals impact each other. If one animal is taken out of the food chain, the balance will be heavily shifted. If the seal population were to decline, the whales and polar bears population will also decline due to the lack of food. However, salmon and other fish would thrive because their natural predator has been taken out.
Keystone 2 – A News Report
In a group, we had to create a video addressing a real-life issue on an animal that’s population is either too big or small. We also had to show what we are currently doing to counter this problem and my solution to this problem.
Keystone 3 – 5 Instagram Posts
Working with a partner or by yourself, we had to create 5 social media posts that showed all the things we learned and how humans have impacted them. This included the Earth’s spheres, bioaccumulation/biomagnification, local interconnected food webs, local wildlife management and nutrient cycles.
Driving Question: In what way has humans impacted the delicate cycles within our local ecosystem and how can we lessen the impact?
The first thing we did was research the topic about build our knowledge on this topic. We learnt about abiotic, biotic, Earth’s spheres, bioaccumulation, local interconnected food webs, local wildlife management and nutrient cycles. While learning about these topics, we did multiple activities such as drawing a solution to stop bioaccumulation.
After that, I started the first keystone. Like mentioned earlier in this post, I had to create a Scratch game that shows how animals interact with each other in a food web. I chose the Antarctician food web, this includes seals, whales, penguins, etc. I chose to make mine more like a game, you got to choose what animal you play so that you could move around and eat, avoid, survive. I learnt a lot about this food web and the animals inside of it and how humans impacted them. If you would like to play my game, this is the link: The chain on Scratch (mit.edu)
We then proceeded to start the next keystone. This is the keystone where I had to work in a group to develop a news report on what we should do in a real-world wildlife problem. I was working with Sofia and Keira, and we chose to focus on the dwindling salmon population because of the rise in the seal population. I got the role of interviewing people on the situation, Sofia was the news reporter, and Keira was the local citizen that I had to interview. For this keystone, I learnt that humans have drastically impacted animals all over the world, in a good and bad way. We try to stabilize any anomalies within a food web so that the population of the animals within are balanced. Here is the news report we created:
We finally entered the final part of the project, we had to work on was the 5 Instagram posts that showed what we learned throughout the project. We were allowed to work with partners, and I chose Logan. I worked on the food webs and local wildlife management posts while he did the 3 others. I had to summarize my learning throughout this topic in these posts. The posts:
In conclusion, I found this project pretty fun to do. Some things I enjoyed doing was creating the news report and making the scratch game. Personally, I didn’t really mind listening to the lectures because they were informative and interesting. Ms. Kadi explained things in an easy to learn way.
-Chris