Online Lab for Grades 10-12
by
Emma N. Olsen
—
last modified
Mar 02, 2009 10:17 AM
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"When one tugs at a single thing in nature,
he finds it attached to the rest of the world."
John Muir
Introduction to the Online Lab
The online lab was developed by Professor Roy Barnes at the Center for Native and Urban Wildilfe as tools for high school and college students around the world to learn about the relationships between species and their interdependence. These activities in the online lab are designed to help the student of life sciences to understand the importance of preserving biodiversity in order to maintain the web of life. As Chief Seattle wrote in 1854: "All things are connected ... man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself."
Biodiversity is defined as the variety of life in three ways:
1. Species Diversity: Animals and plants of their own kind which mate and have successful and fertile offspring. Arizona's Sonoran Desert is lavishly abundant in native species who belong here because they have evolved to coexist by having slightly different habitats (the place where they live) and niches (the job they have and season and time they do that job).
2. Ecosystem Diversity: Ecosystems (the interaction of living and non-living components in a place) are numerous thanks to differences in elevation, slope, exposure to the sun, temperature, water, and so on. Desert flats, hillsides, canyons, north and south exposures, riparian habitats - they all represent different ecosystems taken advantage of by various species who depend on them. Washes, rivers, streams, lakes, canyons, manmade irrigation canals, farmland, yards - all of them attract a unique range of species.
3. Genetic Diversity: Within each healthy and thriving population of species, there is genetic diversity, or gene variations coding for those characteristics. Surviving and thriving in long hot summers, through infestations of pests, and low water conditions means that the individuals with the "best" genes for that time and place will be selected to leave more offspring for succeeding generations.
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