Ecology Unit Activities 2

You can check out the other ecology unit activities that I shared by clicking here.

Collaborative Posters: Carbon and Nitrogen Cycles
Students worked in groups of 3-4 to complete a collaborative poster over the carbon or nitrogen cycle.  I allowed them to choose one after they had completed a small group reading together over each cycle.  

Students had to work together to create a visual representation based off of what they read; as I had not specifically taught the concept yet and wanted to see what they could learn/pull from the reading.  If you're not familiar with collaborative posters, you can check out a post I wrote back in 2013, here.

Ecological Succession Story and Illustration
Students participated in a small group collaborative reading and then had to use information from what they read to illustrate the stages of succession. 

Ecology Task Cards
I ended the unit with the use of ecology task cards as a cumulative activity to help students connect concepts and to review what they had learned about during the past few days. 

Left-side Interactive Notebook Activities: 
Ecology Acrostic and 1 page narrative
Students utilized their interactive notebooks throughout the unit.  Two ways that I had students demonstrate their understanding were through the use of an acrostic and a 1-page narrative from the perspective an another organism (e.g. animal, plant, bacteria, etc.)

The example above does contain mistakes (spelling/grammar); however, the student appropriately completed the acrostic based on the rubric that was provided. 

 "I have...Who has..." Review 
I actually had the students play "I have...Who has..." right before they took the exam as it reviewed the academic vocabulary and various concepts.

I hope you enjoyed reading and viewing the pictures about a few of the things I used during my ecology unit.  

Share your ideas for how you engage and motivate students when teaching ecology in the comment section below!