Welcome to my first post of my grade 9 year!

This year, Scimatics is no longer a PLP subject. Now, its just Science. For our first Science project, we took a look at ecosystems and our affects on them. This project was called Handle With Care. The driving question was “In what ways have humans impacted the delicate cycles within our local ecosystems and how can we lesson our impact?” In this project we explored human impacts on the environment. We learned about ecosystems and how they are impacted by human activities. As our final product, we created a fake social media campaign about ecosystems and the environment.

At the start of the project we researched ecosystems. We used that research to create an interactive food web. Click on each animal below to see what they are and what they eat.

This is my reflection on the food web:

This food web shows lots of interconnectivity within this ecosystem. Every animal has at least one thing to eat. If one animal were to go missing, lots of animals higher on the food web would die, while some of the other animals on the bottom would grow rapidly in population. The web needs no other organisms, and requires no less. If humans were to be included, they would likely eat the salmon and the deer mainly, which would hugely impact the bears and the wolves, causing the other animals to ether slowly grow in population or die out. This would be devastating and could ruin the flow of the entire ecosystem. This ecosystem is very connected and tightly interwoven while also being very delicate.

Next, we learned about bioaccumulation and biomagnification which is the process in which contaminants move up food webs. We focused on micro-plastics in oceans. This is a GIF I created to show this process:

The third topic we learned about was wildlife management. Wildlife management is the process  in which ecosystems are preserved. For the accompanying assignment, we got into groups and researched a specific example of this. I was in a group with Charlie M, Charlie R, and Mackenzie. We researched the management methods used to control rising sea urchin populations off the coasts of California. We were then tasked with creating a fake news report on the topic. This is what we created:

Our next assignment was to research one of the earth’s cycles and how we affect it. I chose the carbon cycle. We then made posters on our cycles. This is my poster:

We also made a second poster on one of the earth’s spheres and the affects we have on it. I chose the biosphere. This is my poster:

Once the other five assignments were complete, we used them to create fake social media campaigns. These are my posts:

In this project, I learned a lot about my impacts on the earth. To answer the driving question; our actions affect the delicate cycles within our local ecosystems in many ways. By farming food, building cities, cutting down forests, and doing similar actives, we can negatively impact our ecosystems. It is important we keep in mind the repercussions of our actions. We should always try to learn as much about how we impact our ecosystems as we can so that we can try to lessen our negative footprint. If we don’t, we could end up ruining our ecosystems.