Sampler: Ecology/Environmental Science
Our Ecology/Environmental Science sampler includes the following labs, plus workbooks and installation cd.
EcoBeaker: Isle RoyaleThis popular laboratory explores basic population biology concepts including exponential and logistic growth and carrying capacity. It is based on the textbook example of a predator-prey system involving wolves and moose on an island in Lake Superior. Students start out by characterizing the growth of a colonizing population of moose in the absence of predators. ... Read more |
EcoBeaker: Keystone PredatorThis laboratory recreates the famous experiments of Paine and colleagues in the Pacific Northwest with the sea star Pisaster (and 8 other marine intertidal species). Students do transplant experiments to figure out competitive relationships and sample gut contents to construct a food web. Next they use their data to predict what will happen when each predator is removed from the system. ... Read more |
EcoBeaker: Nutrient Pollution (formerly "Sewage")What will happen if your city starts dumping lots of extra sewage into your local lake? ... Read more |
EcoBeaker: Intermediate Disturbance HypothesisUsing a model of succession from grasses to trees, students start out by observing a successional sequence without disturbance. Then they get to start setting fires. By systematically varying the size and frequency of fires, they recreate the standard textbook graph of the intermediate disturbance hypothesis showing that species diversity is highest at intermediate levels of disturbance. ... Read more |
EcoBeaker: Corridors, Stepping Stones and ButterfliesUsing a simulation of a population of Fender's blue butterfly, a threatened species that is endemic to western Oregon (USA) prairies, students try to figure out the best habitat restoration scheme given pre-existing patches of prairie. ... Read more |
EcoBeaker: Prairie SamplingThis laboratory explores sampling strategies and dispersion patterns using a model of a prairie plant community. Students first learn how to estimate population sizes from samples using scaling factors. Next, they collect and graph sampling data to evaluate the importance of random versus biased sampling. They also analyze how sampling effort influences the accuracy of population estimates. ... Read more |