3-04 ENGAGE: Intro to Cycles in Ecosystems

Welcome to:
Matter and Energy in

Ecosystems

Key Vocabulary

abiotic, biotic, decomposer, energy pyramid,

glucose, primary consumer, producer,

respiration, secondary consumer, tertiary

consumer, transpiration, trophic level

Match

Match the following

• nonliving things

• living things

• Organisms that make their own food

• Organisms that have to eat other organisms to obtain energy

Abiotic

Biotic

producer

consumer

• Abiotic

• Biotic

• producer

• consumer

The 38-liter (10-gallon) bottle garden shown in the photo was started by David Latimer in 1960. He last watered it in 1972 before sealing it shut to see what would happen. The plants inside are called spiderwort.

Bottle Garden

Open Ended

Record your observations about the bottle garden phenomenon.

Open Ended

Write down 2 to 3 questions you have about the spiderwort plants sealed in the container for over 50 years, and how they can get what they need to survive

Draw

Using Energy and Matter to Think About the Bottle Garden

To understand this phenomenon will require thinking about how plants get the materials (matter) they need to live, and how they use energy to grow.

Draw diagrams and use words to show what materials (matter) you think are inside the bottle. Thinking about how matter cycles through the bottle system can help us figure out how the spiderwort plants could survive over 50 years without any matter being added to the bottle.

This bottle system was placed 2 meters (6 feet) from a window, and Latimer turned the bottle every so often. Add your ideas about how energy might flow through the system to your diagrams.

Poll

 Do you think the mass of the bottle system would be the same as or different from the mass when it was sealed in 1972?

• stayed the same

• has decreased

• has increased

Open Ended

Based on your answer to the poll in Part 3, complete the sentence:

I think this because . . .