Online graphing database of competition and predation

Thanks to Wild Dogger for the Creative Commons picture of the impala.
Thanks to ucumari for the Creative Commons picture of the leopard.
Thanks to Olivier DELAERE for the Creative Commons picture of the kongoni.

I still have three more tech-related tasks I want to try with my students to help them learn the concepts of population dynamics: manipulating spreadsheet data to produce population over time graphs, use database data to produce a demographic transition model, and use a wiki or blog to share their views about some issue related to human population changes. ( I also would like to start an entry on wikipedia as an extension effort to this course. )

For this activity I was fortunate to receive a "Population Growth Model" spreadsheet from Laura Brown, an excellent IB presenter for the new IB SL Environmental Systems and Societies course that is offered starting this year. I was able to manipulate the parameters to produce the initial graphs I desire for students related to exponential growth, carrying capacity, competition, and predation on individual sheets of the Excel program.

My goals for this exercise were:
1) to have students gain experience with changing parameters on spreadsheets and seeing the changes in graphs,
2) to have students gain experience with a variety of population concepts by varying parameters to show changes in population curves for different trophic levels,
3) to communicate the tasks clearly so students could go through the exercise without further assistance from others or need any additional assistance from me,
4) to have the students communicate their learning in words by reflecting on their learning, and
5) to have students demonstrate their understanding of the above well on related questions on the unit test.

Later..
I was fortunate in having all students complete the lab over the weekend and complete their reflection on their learning. No students sought help in understanding what to do on the lab and the class did very well on the related questions on the test. A general weakness students had with the lab was understanding why carrying capacities decreased with two species were competing for teh same resources. I covered this concept when I handed the reports back. I should introduce the competitive exclusion principle to students to help them understand this concept better.

The student reflections were specific in parts, like seeing how the herbivore population can affect the predator population, but were occasionally general, like, I gained a better understanding of how populations can affect each other.

This lab addressed Effective Learning standards EL1b, EL1d, EL2a, and EL2c, and Effecive Communicator and Creator standard ECC2.