Syllabus and link to the papers.

ECOLOGY and EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY

12th Grade Main Lesson Block

November 28 – December 16, 2011

Mr. Hatfield

Blog:  http://pwhsscience.blogspot.com/

rghatfield@gmail.com

Course Description:  In zoology, we will explore the diversity of the animal world through observation and exploration of the different phyla in the animal kingdom.  As a divergence from years past, we will do this through investigation of the ecology of three related ecosystems:  The Pacific Northwest Forest, Freshwater ecology (mostly stream and river) and Pacific Coast ecology.  We will also discuss some of the genetic relationships that have been hypothesized by scientists in the field and take a look at what evidence exists for those relationships. 

Grades:  I will evaluate grades using the following rubric:

Essays                                                 50%

Participation/Homework                    15%

Presentations                                      35%

Essays:  You will write four different essays from this block.  One will be related to forest ecology, one on freshwater ecology and one on coastal ecology.  The final paper will be a survey of general ecological and evolutionary concepts found within and between each ecosystem.   Each essay will include information from primary research and will be well documented and comprehensive.  Topics of each individual paper will differ depending on both assignments given and interest. 

Participation/HW/Presentations:  Most every day in class, we will be either observing animals and their behavior or conducting primary research.  We will divide up into four groups for the course of the block.  Each group will be assigned a specific animal group or relationship within each ecosystem, or a topic within evolutionary biology.  Students will have time during the week to collaborate, read, research and converse with me to come to a comprehensive understanding of the concepts and animals contained in each of the papers that I assign.  This will likely necessitate additional reading and research.  These papers are only meant as starting points for your research.  Each group will then give a 30 minute presentation on the information learned in their research.  It will be your job to synthesize the various presentations to learn broader concepts in ecology and evolution for the final paper.

The links below will take you to the papers in each section.  The topic is self-explanatory.  After the topic is a number and that corresponds to the group that will be covering that topic.  Following the number is sometimes a couple of words, those correspond to the specific document that you want when you click on the link to the papers.  The evolution papers are a bit different.  Each one links to the specific paper of interest.  Let me know if you need any additional help.

Week 1 topic:

Fresh Water Ecology:  Link to the papers is here

·       Salmon (1)  Salmon Ecology 2

·       Invertebrates (2)  Cummins Bioscience

·       Water-Land interactions (3)

·       Evolution (4)  -  Darwin paper

Week 2 topics:  

Coastal Ecology:  Link to the papers is here

·       Sea stars (2)  Paine

·       Otters (3) 

·       Sponges (4)

·       Evolution (1)  -  Evolution of shell curlingpaper

Week 3 topic:

Forest Ecology:  Link to the papers is here

·       Earthworms (3)  - Worm Ecology 2

·       Lynx and Hare (4)

·       Elk Wolf (1)

·       Evolution (2)  -  Darwin’s Finches paper

Groups:

1

Sarah

Maya

Aidan

Kyle

Koral

2

Wolky

Mayu

Emma

Sophia

Collin

3

Tamara

Alaina

Sam

Olivia

Gabriel

4

Claire

Sean

Peter

Oksana

Cameron