Objective

By the end of this activity, students will have practice using vocabulary and terms associated with ecology and the Microdocs collection. 

Materials

Lesson Plan [PDF]
PowerPoint Ecology Jeopardy [280KB PPT]

Microdocs

All, but especially elements of sustainability, sustainability on coral reefs, species on coral reefs, solutions around the world.

Duration

The PowerPoint Jeopardy activity can be completed in one 30 minutes class session.

Procedure

Gather students into groups of 2 – 5. Each group takes turns answering questions. Assign two student to keep score one with the task of recording and one person to interface with the teacher and teams.  Calculations are recommended to be done at the conclusions of the game, which is an opportunity to practice with integers. 

With the PowerPoint projected, use the view show function to begin the questions.  One student will pick the category and point value while the teacher selects that link to display the Jeopardy answer.  Student responses will be in Jeopardy question format. Continue until all of the categories and point values have been exhausted.

Optionally, this activity can be conducted for individual students by giving them the PowerPoint and having them track individual scores.     

Assessment

This activity calls for subjective assessment due to the nature of there not being individual accountability.  If student are motivated by the competition then that can be a measure of success. 

California Standards
Ecology (Life Sciences)

5. Organisms in ecosystems exchange energy and nutrients among themselves and with the environment. As a basis for understanding this concept:
1. Students know energy entering ecosystems as sunlight is transferred by producers into chemical energy through photosynthesis and then from organism to organism through food webs.
2. Students know matter is transferred over time from one organism to others in the food web and between organisms and the physical environment.
3. Students know populations of organisms can be categorized by the functions they serve in an ecosystem.
4. Students know different kinds of organisms may play similar ecological roles in similar biomes.