Lesson 1: A biodome

Lesson 1: A biodome

By Sosana Hove

Investigating a Biodome

​Anchor Phenomenon: The biodome ecosystem has collapsed.

​Students learn:

• A system is a set of interacting parts, forming a complex whole.

• Ecosystems are made up of living and nonliving things that interact in a particular area.

• The organisms in an ecosystem cannot grow or reproduce if they do not have enough energy storage molecules.

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Chapter 1: Photosynthesis

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​Unit Question: How do all the organisms in an ecosystem get the resources they need to release energy?

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Chapter 1 Question: Why didn't the plants and animals in the biodome have enough energy storage molecules? section headers:

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Key Concepts,

Vocabulary : abiotic matter, biotic matter, ecosystem, energy storage molecule, system

Chapter 1: Photosynthesis

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An Ecosystem is an interacting system of living organisms and the non-living components of their surrounding environment.

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Matter that is part of a living organism is called biotic matter.

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The matter that is not part of a living organism is called abiotic matter. Reservoirs of abiotic matter include air, water, rock, dead organisms, waste from organisms, and the nonliving parts of soil.

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Matter travels between biotic and abiotic parts of an ecosystem.

Energy in an ecosystem

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​Energy is the ability to move or change. Energy can transfer from one part of an ecosystem to another and can be converted from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. All organisms in an ecosystem use energy to reproduce and move, and for all the internal processes that keep organisms alive. Organisms release this energy through cellular respiration, a chemical reaction between oxygen and energy storage molecules such as glucose. The initial source of this energy in nearly all ecosystems is sunlight, which allows producers (e.g., plants and algae) to create their own energy storage molecules through the process of photosynthesis. (In a few ecosystems, such as ecosystems around deep sea vents, the original energy source is chemical.) One way ecologists make sense of ecosystems is by tracking the flow of energy: from sunlight to producers, from producers to the animals that eat them, and on to the animals that eat those animals.