Odyssey discussion
I believe the essay is trying to explain how matter is constantly recycled. It goes through many different steps, some are nonliving and some are living things. It just keeps being recycled over and over again.
The whole concept of recycling of nutrients is often difficult for students because they cannot see it happening. I think this essay does a great job of showing different examples of food chains and how they pass nutrients from one trophic level to the next. It also explains how nutrients can get back into a food chain once they get into the soil. I would talk about the first food chain since it is fairly simple. Once they catch on to the process then we would continue to the next situation and so forth. The fire adds an important step to the process that is not always talked about. My Biology II class studies a lot about fire ecology so this would work in nicely with that topic.
2 Replies
Scott, do you think the Prezi helps unpack the essay better than the flowchart exercise we did in the Feb. workshop?
Agree about the contents of the essay and what a neat way to present the material with the Prezi.... Great idea for my environmental class. I agree that fire is seldom mentioned in the cycle of nutrients but how important it is! That also leads into the topic of human intervention at any point in the cycle - for example the 1988 fires of Yellowstone.
Anne Lewis
Jun 13, 2011 at 2:44 PM