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Predator Prey. Enduring Understandings. Populations may be limited by a myriad of factors. Populations increase or decrease relative to the availability of resources and conditions of the environment.
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Enduring Understandings • Populations may be limited by a myriad of factors. • Populations increase or decrease relative to the availability of resources and conditions of the environment. • Adaptations are characteristics which allow organisms to survive and reproduce in their environment.
Essential Questions • What are the limiting factors that determine if an organism can survive in an environment? • Which adaptations allow individual organisms to survive in this ecosystem?
Questions to get you thinking…. • What is a simulation? • What do all organisms need to survive? • Name a few native animalsthat could be found in this area. • What are basic requirements for survival?
Native Animals and their energy roles • Herbivores: white tailed deer, rabbit, beaver, menhaden, goose • Omnivores: gray fox, red fox, raccoon, black bear, chipmunk, coyote, opossum, skunk, Baltimore oriole, blue jay, downy woodpecker • Carnivores: hawk, eagle, bobcat, red fox, gray fox, great blue heron Whichonewill you be?
Safety during the simulation: • What the teacher location will be in case of an emergency during the simulation • Boundaries – USE MAPS - paths large enough to drive a tractor on; never cross those large boundaries • Never cross a stream, bridge, or road • If you’re lost, stay where you are and staff will be looking for you. • Listen for ending signal and return immediately to designated area • Pitfalls – watch out for holes, branches, briars, barbed wire, poison ivy • Do not climb trees. No participant in this simulation is arboreal, a tree climber. • This is a park and people may be on the trails. • “Keep an eye out” for each other.
Now that you are done….. • What strategies did you use? • What happened as various predators entered the simulation? • What would happen if there were more carnivores? herbivores? omnivores? • How does this activity help explain the deer population problems in our area? • How do human’s activities influence animal populations in our area? • Discuss adaptations of each group, the physical characteristics which allowed them to be successful.