Middle School Inquiry Lab on Ecological Succession
In this lab students will use multiple web sites to investigate ecological succession. Students will also explore the difference between primary and secondary succession, how succession occurs, and the order in which various types of organisms inhabit an area.
Each inquiry lab will contain an essential question that will drive the lesson and make students think. For this lesson, the essential question is:
- What is the difference between primary and secondary succession, and what occurs at each stage of succession?
BACKGROUND INFORMATION AND MATERIALS LIST:
Students will begin the lab by reading the essential question and background information. This can be done individually, as lab groups, or as a whole class. If you consider lab groups, you also might include some type of whole class formative checks before digging into the lab.
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Materials List:
- computer or tablet
- lab sheet
- colored pencils
PROCEDURE:
For this lab, students will utilize videos and interactive websites to gain information and then prove their knowledge by answering questions about the information. The students start off by watching a video explaining the differences between primary and secondary succession. Following the video, students will answer a couple of questions.
After gaining very basic and foundational information from watching the video, students will navigate their way to an interactive website. Students begin to build their new ecosystems one level of succession at a time. Starting with a newly developed island, students work their way to climax community, while answering a few questions along the way. Once their community has reached it final stage, a natural disaster takes place and the whole succession process starts all over again.
CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING:
At this point in the lab, students will be checked for understanding by answering questions about their findings. Here are a few that come with the lab:
- What types of organisms must first inhabit an area in primary succession?
- What types of events could trigger secondary succession? What is present at the beginning of secondary succession that is NOT present in primary succession?
CONCLUSION
Students will go back to the essential question and write a CER (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning) to conclude the lab. Once completed, students will reflect back on their learning by answering the following questions:
- What are the biggest differences between primary and secondary succession?
MODIFIED AND INDEPENDENT INQUIRY VERSIONS
All of the Kesler Science inquiry labs come with three different modification levels. Each lab is differentiated using the icons below.
STANDARDS ALIGNMENT
TEKS 7.10C – Observe, record, and describe the role of ecological succession such as in a microhabitat of a garden with weeds.
