Ecosystem Explorers

Calling all junior naturalists—there is always something new to learn!

Let’s practice looking very closely for any evidence that living things have left behind to let us know they were here, plus go on a site visit to measure the diversity of life. How can practicing close observation of the natural world make us better citizen scientists?

Teacher's Guide

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Ohio's Learning Standards

Grade 3

Life Science: Behavior, Growth, and Change

• Individuals of the same kind of organism differ in their inherited traits. These differences give some individuals an advantage in surviving and/or reproducing.
• Plants and animals have life cycles that are part of their adaptations for survival in their natural environments.

Grade 4

Life Science: Earth’s Living History

• Changes in an organism’s environment are sometimes beneficial to its survival and sometimes harmful.

Grade 5

Life Science: Interactions within Ecosystems

• Organisms perform a variety of roles in an ecosystem.
• All of the processes that take place within organisms require energy.