Thursday, September 11, 2025

Activity 2.3 – Biosphere and Interconnections


 


Above: Chapter 4 Concept Map of Energy & Ecosystems












Above: Chapter 7 Concept Map of Biodiversity












Above: Chapter 8 Concept Map of Biomes and Ecozones 

   

 When you look at chapters 4, 7, and 8 together, they are really about how life works as a system holistically. Chapter 4 explains how energy is the base of everything. The sun gives energy to the Earth, plants capture it through photosynthesis, and then that energy moves through food chains and food webs. Some of that energy is always lost as heat, so ecosystems have to keep getting new solar energy. That connects to Chapter 7 because biodiversity is the variety of living things that actually use and pass on this energy. Plants and algae capture it, herbivores and carnivores use it, and decomposers recycle it. On top of that, biodiversity is valuable for people too, giving us food, oxygen, and even medicines like taxol from yew trees and vincristine from periwinkle.

    Chapter 8 ties in because it talks about the places where all of this happens, which are the biomes and ecozones. These are things like tundra, grasslands, or tropical forests. Each biome is shaped by temperature and water, and that decides which species can survive and how much energy flow there is. For example, deserts have little productivity compared to rainforests, but both still follow the same energy rules from Chapter 4. The organisms in those biomes, from bacteria to mammals, are the biodiversity described in Chapter 7.

    Overall, the three chapters really link together. Energy flow from Chapter 4 sets the rules, biodiversity from Chapter 7 explains the living players, and biomes from Chapter 8 are the stage where it all happens. 

References:

Freedman, B. (2018). Environmental science: A Canadian perspective.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Activity 4.2.1 – Applying My Environmental Policy Frameworks.

  Problem Statement The case I chose looks at Newton County, Georgia, where Meta built a massive $750 million data center right next to ru...