SILO F.4 (DRAFT)

Foundation, Term 4: Ecosystems

Focus: Sustainability Scope and sequence: Sustainability

Learning intention: Students learn about systems in the context of living things and the environment.

NSW Syllabus
Australian Curriculum (version 9.0)
"A student describes observable features of living things and their environments." (ST1-4LW-S)
"Student identify the basic needs of plants and animals, including air, water, food or shelter, and describe how the places they live meet those needs." (AC9S1U01)


Introduction to the topic

Ecosystems are systems formed by the interaction of living things and their environment. The following video (6:22) provides a good introduction to how things work together in an ecosystem.


Soil

There are five key ingredients in good soil, namely:

  1. Minerals
  2. Organic matter
  3. Water
  4. Air
  5. Organisms

The following video (6:23) specifies the first four of these ingredients and then adds the 'FBI' (i.e., fungus, bacteria and invertebrates) for the organisms.


Irrigation

Water and irrigation

Flood irrigation

Drip irrigation

Spray irrigation

The importance of valves

The direction of fluids is discussed in this video (5:23) about valves, arteries and veins.


Fisheries

This video (2:48) from the UK shows how Salmon are farmed commercially.


This video (5:30) features Rachel Wilson who is an Australian free-range egg farmer from WA.


Aqueducts

The following video (1:33) features Roman aqueducts and some of the engineering principles behind them.

 

Aqueduct construction activity.

Desalination plant

The following video (2:12) shows how to make a desalination plant using the sun. It is more accurate to describe this as solar thermal energy as this experiment is based on evaporation and the light energy from the sun is not transformed into electrical current.



Moderated self-assessment

 

 

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