Promote Global WORMING! Decomposers in the Biotic Pyramid

Primary succession, showing small tree growing with small amount of soil by Martin LaBar
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What is a Decomposer? What role do Decomposers play in the process of environmental succession within the Biotic Pyramid? What types of living things are considered Decomposers in the Biotic Pyramid? 

In the process of primary and secondary succession, bare rock becomes covered with plants, as well as animals. At first there is little soil, so life is tenuous. As time goes by, the decomposers and small plants begin to wear down the bare rock, and the variety of  life 
increases.

Succession in bodies of water, especially fresh water ponds and lakes is similar to bare rock succession. The difference is that water replaces the rock. Decomposers such as worms depend on a moderate level of water in the soil to survive, so they cannot live in either of the first stages of bare rock succession or pond succession.

To help students gain an understanding of succession, the leader (teacher) will use the Project Wild Aquatic activity, Pond Succession, found on pages 66-68. A fieldtrip to a variety of natural environments in the various stages of succession would be a wonderful way to provide students with an opportunity to see these NATURAL environmental changes.

The Beth Chatto Gardens Float My Boat! by antonychammond (playing catchup!)
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The objectives of Pond Succession would be the same as that of Bare Rock Succession. If you wanted to substitute Bare Rock Succession for Pond Succession that is fine. Remember our focus is on the worms and similar decomposers, so the students will need information about the worm's habitat. Then the worms can be added into the right stage of either type of succession. The objectives are listed below.
In this activity, students will:

1. recognize that natural environments are involved in a process of continual change.
2. discuss the concept of succession.
3. describe succession as an example of the process of change in natural environments. AND
4. apply understanding by drawing a series of pictures showing stages in pond succession.

When the learners, students, apply understanding of succession, by drawing a series of pictures, showing stages of succession or keeping a log or diary of a related fieldtrip, the teacher should use this as their evaluation (assessment) for this activity.

Promote Global WORMING! Prior Knowledge and Post Project Assessment

Have you considered the various ways to think about this environmental education project? Since it's all about worms, Kitchen Komposting, decomposers and the Biotic Pyramid, it's best to discover what the learners you're working with already know.

I've included this graphic organizer that the wonderful folks at Learning Today created to encourage people to use Bloom's Taxonomy of Thinking. This taxonomy ranges from lower order thinking skills such as remembering to higher order thinking skills such as creating.

For the first activity of the Kitchen Komposting project, the learner will REMEMBER by listing, writing, and naming ideas associated with the four topics listed below.

During this activity, the learners and the teacher can assess BASIC prior knowledge about the topics mentioned here:

• worms
• Kitchen Komposting
• decomposers
• Biotic Pyramid
• Gardening

The LIFE SCIENCE benchmark – The student will develop an understanding of biological concepts through direct experience with living things, their life cycles, and their habitats, Gardening will be the entity to help students evaluate their basic level of remembering, in the manner described in this activity. Gardening is key.

In general, these curriculum standards refer to middle elementary age, but they can be adjusted up or down the age scale. After the pretest, Gardening will be the entity with all its attributes.

Here are the directions for the prior knowledge assessment. These same instructions can be used as a post test. The assessments should be informal and nonthreatening to promote a basic understanding of the topics related to the understanding of the role decomposers, such as worms, play in the real world.

1. Split the learners in four groups. Give each group a set of cards or sticky notes with their own special symbol or color...to indicate the group doing the writing.
2. Ask each group to look at each of the four topics and write as many single terms that relate to the topic. Say this: Please think of as many topics that relate to WORM (then Kitchen Komposting, decomposers, the Biotic Pyramid, and Gardening). Write each one on a card or sticky note. Provide 2-3 minutes to list as many as they can. Decrease or increase this time according to the age of the learners.
3. Each group will take a picture of their list to help them remember their ideas as the project continues throughout our Gardening Inquiry. 
4. Then the group will take their sticky notes to the appropriate chart paper and place them on it. For instance, everything related to WORM will be placed on the chart paper labeled WORM.
5. If another group already listed a the same , that's good....they should put their sticky note next to the first one...they will end up with a type of graph or chart.
6. After all the sticky notes are placed on the appropriate chart paper, a helper, group leader or teacher will take a picture of each chart paper for worms, Kitchen Komposting, etc. These photos will be used to compare to the post test that will be given after the Kitchen Komposting project is complete.
7. The entire group will focus on the lists and discuss ideas about their choices.
8. This data analysis can be continued or expanded to include graphing, writing the lists, and other related activities about Gardening.

After the activity is complete, the leader (teacher) should display the images (pictures) that the entire class created...for further reference throughout the Gardening project.

You can also complete a KWHL graphic organizer for the Preassessment. Kitchen Komposting is one PART of the overarching concept, the entity, called gardening. Gardening is the theme that all the attributes belong to. Composting, Worms, Biotic Pyramid, plants, animals, insects, and more all will be covered as attributes of Gardening.

Basically, a Word Wall is created. As an extension activity when the leader/teacher continues the project, each learner could select a few of the words to make big, colorful flash cards for a formalized Word Wall bulletin board. Usually students appreciate these type of thought centering activities to guide the project, and they will want to refer to them often as we begin our Gardening analysis through various inquiries.

Promote Global WORMING!

Yes by looseends
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Worms support the biotic pyramid, so they make a great metaphor for promoting environmental education among children, as well as adults. The use of worms, especially in composting, is so popular that educators definitely need to include it in any series of environmental education program that addresses the biotic pyramid.

Decomposition is the basis for the survival of the biotic pyramid, and worms make creating a proper decomposition area much easier and safer than many other types of decomposers, like mold or bacteria. In this series of presentations, let's examine how a variety of activities can be used to support this important aspect of environmental education.

While the central project will be to create and keep a "Kitchen Komposter" as a valuable way to live aspects of the Three R's:

• Reduce
• Reuse
• Recycle

and learn the fourth R: how to RENEW our biotic pyramid. 


Let's also focus on the role WATER plays in our Kitchen Komposter. Can our microhabitat, the Kitchen KOMPOSTER have:

• TOO MUCH WATER?
• NOT ENOUGH WATER? 

How can we determine this?

Through a variety of activities, let's also learn 

1. ways to learn about and express our ideas about the natural world.
2. what the Biotic Pyramid is.
3. what types of living things are considered Decomposers in the Biotic Pyramid.
4. how earthworms ( or other macroinvertebrates) live in their habitat. What is their life cycle?
5. how the life cycle activities of worms or other macroinvertebrates support water recycling, as well as solid waste recycling. 
6.  how to simulate or create an environment similar to the natural one where worms live, grow and reproduce.
7. ways to measure the inputs and outputs of our Kitchen Komposter.
8. ways to enhance the biotic pyramid through the Kitchen Komposter.

In future posts, Activities and Assessments will be discussed that are aligned with Kansas state curriculum.