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Marine West Coast Ecosystem Food Chains Article
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How To Understand The Ecosystem For Kids
from:Studying and learning about the ecosystem can be a vast and confusing topic for kids. Ecosystem is a big word that can be intimidating for children. Ecosystem is short for ecological systems. Simply put and ecosystem is all the animals and other living things in a specific area. This can include plants, micro organism, large and small animals and birds among other things. All of the living things interact with each other and with their non-living environment in an ecosystem. For kids it may be hard to understand the basic concept of how ecosystems work. It is a good idea to help children get a better understanding of ecosystems by playing games and doing crafts and models to illustrate the concept.
Activities That Illustrate The Ecosystem For Kids.
One of the best ways to help children to get a better idea about ecosystems is by doing models of miniature ecosystems that they may be familiar with. Building small ecosystem models is a great activity to help build understanding of ecosystems for kids. Miniature ecosystem models are fairly easy to make and can be used to demonstrate a variety of ecosystems for kids, including:
• The desert of Africa, the Middle Eaat or the California and Arizona area
• A Tropical Savannah as seen in Africa
• A Tropical Rainforest such as in Brazil
• A Grasslands area that would be present in the plains states such as Oklahoma
• A Deciduous forest like what grows on the East Coast and in the Northern states
Another benefit to demonstrating the ecosystem for kids by using miniature ecosystem models is that it is a great way to teach geography as well.
Here are a few more great ideas for helping to understand the ecosystem for kids.
• Visit a local botanical garden. Botanical gardens grow a wide range of plants from all over the world. This is a great way to learn about what plants are found in different ecosystems and how they all relate to each other.
• Do a study on which animals belong in certain ecosystems. For younger children you can do some role playing and allow the children to take on the role of a predator or prey. Older children can do reports on the food chain and how the animals and plants are dependent upon each other.
• Pick an ecosystem to look into and see what happens when a new animal or plant is introduced to that ecosystem and what the consequences are. There are many examples of this happening with dire effects.
As you can see there are many activities that can be done to help get a better understanding and working knowledge of the ecosystem for kids. With a little creativity you can teach them how to be good stewards and care takers of this world.
Marine West Coast Ecosystem Food Chains News
Protect forage fish, cornerstone of our ocean's food web - The Seattle Times
 The Seattle Times | Protect forage fish, cornerstone of our ocean's food web The Seattle Times Fortunately, the council will also consider the need to better protect the little fish that form the linchpin of a healthy and productive coastal ecosystem. A new report by a group of leading marine scientists — including two researchers from the ... |
The great Pacific garbage reality - Los Angeles Times
 AFP | The great Pacific garbage reality Los Angeles Times (Peter Mark / Kyodo News, Associated Press / May 2, 2012) By Usha Lee McFarling For months, West Coast residents have been bracing for an onslaught of items drifting toward us since last spring's tsunami in northeastern Japan, which swept apartment ... Toxic tsunami debris will flood Alaska shores |
Seagrass and the carbon paradox - RenewEconomy
Seagrass and the carbon paradox RenewEconomy Seagrass meadows play an important role in the maintenance of marine biodiversity in coastal ecosystems (Hemming and Duarte 2000), but recent research shows that they also have the capacity to act as intense carbon sinks. In a paper published just this ... |
Point/Counterpoint: Sardine population off West Coast is in steep decline - The Salinas Californian
Point/Counterpoint: Sardine population off West Coast is in steep decline The Salinas Californian Quite simply, forage species are the base of the ocean food web and removing this food source from the ecosystem is like destroying the foundation of a skyscraper. The result would be an ecosystem crash taking down with it critically important ... |
The Bottom Line: Little Fish Do Matter - Huffington Post (blog)
The Bottom Line: Little Fish Do Matter Huffington Post (blog) But these little fish provide essential food for all the marine life that we like to catch, eat or watch. Unfortunately, most fisheries managers haven't thought too much about these prey fish, either--until now, that is. On the West Coast, ... |