Saving The African Savanna
Introduction:
This project was intended to teach us about ecology. In this project, we chose an ecosystem and a species to research. The ecosystem that we chose was the African Savanna, and the species that we chose was the African Bush Elephant, which is the largest land mammal on in the world. After researching the ecosystem and species, we focused on human impact and what we could do to help them. Our solution included flyers, and Instagram page, and a website. Finally, we created a presentation to share our research with our classmates.
Our project:
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Content:
Our Task: "You will produce a presentation (Prezi,PowerPoint or Google Slides), paper, or video that presents an action plan that will allow your species to thrive in its current environment and what steps you have done to make change based on your action plan. The action plan must be justified by explaining how humans are impacting your species/population. You must also follow through on part of your action plan to make a difference!"
Driving Questions:
- Commensalism (+/0) One organism benefits while the other stays the same. For example, a barnacle and a whale. The barnacle benefits, but it does not affect the whale.
- Competition (-/-) Both organisms are negatively affected. For example, a fox and a mountain lion both hunting for the same food.
- Predation (+/-) One is positively affected, the other is negatively affected. For example, a fox and a rabbit. The fox gets nutrients and fuels itself, and the rabbit dies.
Driving Questions:
- How do humans have a lasting impact on species or populations and their environment?
- Humans have a lasting impact on species, populations and their environment (that is usually negative) for many reasons. First of all, the population of humans is growing exponentially, and so deforestation has become a prevalent issue, in order to make more room for building. Deforestation has wiped out more than 60% of species, and kills thousands more every day. Another impact of humans is pollution. Humans have created tons of trash and waste, and all of that is staying on the planet and killing animals and environments. Lastly, in specific to our project, humans are hurting the African Elephants in the Savanna through poaching. Humans are killing elephants for their tusks, and they are making their way to extinction.
- How can we minimize humans impact on the environment?
- In this project, we worked to minimize human impact by spreading awareness about poaching and the danger that the elephants face. We did this by creating a website that gives all of the needed information about the African elephants and the issue. The website also gave the opportunity to donate to organizations that were putting the money towards stopping poaching all together. We also created flyers and put them around the school so that the students were informed as well.
- Carrying capacity: The number of people, other living organisms, or crops that a region can support without environmental degradation. When shown on a graph, the carrying capacity is the "y" value where the population levels out, or shows an asymptote.
- Each ecosystem is made of both abiotic factors, things that are not living, and biotic factors, which are alive. The next two points are factors in the African Savanna.
- Abiotic Factors: Oxygen, rocks, water, soil, rain
- Biotic Factors: Elephants, tall grass, trees, predators
- Biomass: The total mass of organisms in a given area or volume, excluding water.
- Energy Flow: When a consumer eats either another consumer or a producer, 10% of the previous organism's energy is given to the next. This means that is a pyramid, the organisms on the bottom obtain more energy than the organisms on the top.
- Limiting Factors:A limiting factor in a population is what causes the growth to decrease. There are two types of limiting factors: density dependent and density independent. Density dependent factors rely on the population size. For example: competition between organisms, lack of resources, or spread of disease. Density independent factors do not depend on the size of the population. For example: natural disasters, global warming/pollution, or unusual weather.
- Biodiversity: The variety of life in the world or in a particular habitat or ecosystem. This relates to our project because African Elephants are needed to maintain the variety of life in the Savanna. If they died off, other species would suffer, and this would lead to the disturbance of homeostasis. We care about biodiversity because it keeps homeostasis in the ecosystems and allows for symbiotic relationships.
- Symbiosis:
- Commensalism (+/0) One organism benefits while the other stays the same. For example, a barnacle and a whale. The barnacle benefits, but it does not affect the whale.
- Competition (-/-) Both organisms are negatively affected. For example, a fox and a mountain lion both hunting for the same food.
- Predation (+/-) One is positively affected, the other is negatively affected. For example, a fox and a rabbit. The fox gets nutrients and fuels itself, and the rabbit dies.
- Biosphere: The worldwide sum of all ecosystems. The savanna is one of the many biomes that makes up the biosphere.
- Hydrosphere: All the waters on the earth's surface, such as lakes and seas, and sometimes including water over the earth's surface, such as clouds.
- Atmosphere: The envelope of gases surrounding the earth or another planet. Humans are negatively affecting the atmosphere because of pollution, and this negatively affects other organisms because they breathe that pollution in.
- Poaching:Poaching is a major threat to African Elephants, and this brutal system is where humans will kill the elephants and harvest their tusks to make money off of the ivory.
- Disease: African Elephants are usually affected by mosquito-borne diseases, such as Ross River fever, dengue fever, malaria, and Japanese encephalitis.
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Reflection:
Overall, I really liked this project because we learned how to apply biotechnology to a real world problem. I feel that when a project is applied to the world like that, it makes a bigger impact in the students' mind. This project was also very successful because my team worked very well together. We all shared the work load evenly, and that allowed this project to be stress free time-wise, and it made time management easier.
Something that I think I improved on in this project was time management. Since every group member worked really hard to do their part, we were able to meet all of our milestones at exactly the right time. We also created a gantt chart, which helped us stay on task and on time. While I feel that I improved on time management, I think that something I would like to work on would be leadership. In this project, I did not take a leading role or become a task manager, but I think that that is a good thing because it means that all of us were working well together and doing the work evenly.
This project was very interesting to me, and I’m glad that we had the opportunity to apply biotechnology to the real world and develop a solution. My group worked well together, and this was overall a good learning experience.
Something that I think I improved on in this project was time management. Since every group member worked really hard to do their part, we were able to meet all of our milestones at exactly the right time. We also created a gantt chart, which helped us stay on task and on time. While I feel that I improved on time management, I think that something I would like to work on would be leadership. In this project, I did not take a leading role or become a task manager, but I think that that is a good thing because it means that all of us were working well together and doing the work evenly.
This project was very interesting to me, and I’m glad that we had the opportunity to apply biotechnology to the real world and develop a solution. My group worked well together, and this was overall a good learning experience.