N O T E B O O K
RESOURCES IN ECOSYSTEMS PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT
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Changing Resources for Cichlid Fish
Science and neering Prac Engi tice s
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Recently, your zoo opened a hall of fish diversity. One huge tank is devoted to freshwater fish from African lakes. These cichlids are diverse in look and behavior. You need to make sure each species gets the resources it needs. The cichlids have lived in the zoo for a year with no problems. But when they were moved from small species-specific tanks into the large shared tank, some became unhealthy. In this performance assessment, you will figure out how to make the cichlids healthy again.
Performance Assessment Requirements Your recovery plan should take the form of a talk that includes the following points: • What problem did you face? • What changed when the new tank was created? • What positive and negative interactions led to population changes in the new tank? • Describe how you solved the problem, and include a timeline of ecosystem changes. • A statement predicting patterns of interactions among organisms across multiple ecosystems based on what you learned. • An argument supported by empirical evidence that changes to components of an ecosystem affect populations.
© Teachers’ Curriculum Institute
Changing Resources for Cichlid Fish
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