Population Biology
Activity Description
This lesson sketches out this class and the next on basic ecology. It is divided into three sections: population, community, and ecosystems ecology. The latter two are covered next lesson.
This lesson focuses on population biology: the factors that affect a population’s growth and decline. The four general factors are births, deaths, immigration and emigration.
Estimated Time of Activity: 1.5 hrs
Activity Objectives
Students will be able do the following as a result of the activity:
- Understand the domains of population, community and ecosystems ecology.
- Know what causes a population to grow or decline, and the concept of carrying capacity
- Understand the differences between exponential growth and logistic growth]
- Know why wildlife scientists study populations and how they change over time
Activity Prerequisites
Basic algebra re: graphs and linear equations
Prior lesson on species concepts
Activity Instructions
- This lesson is 90% lecture, however there are a few points at which students should participate. After looking at some photos of different organisms (lion and banana; lion and cougar, etc.), they should spend some time thinking of their own species concept. This introduces the BSC in the next section.
- They should also participate during the slides of the population growth. It is tempting for a teacher who understands what is going on to present the population growth tables and the graphs quickly, but this is not a good idea. Students need to realize that the growth table is a matter of simple multiplication (i.e., that the resulting line is a product of a simple equation: N x death rate x birth rate). The teacher should walk them through the first few years of the table and then show the graph.
Assessment/Assignment
The population biology worksheet (PopBioWS.doc) can be completed for homework or in class. This is taken from: http://www.glencoe.com/sec/science/biology/bio2000/pdfs/bdol4-1.pdf
Materials
PowerPoint (link coming soon)