Get $10 off this class with coupon code ATWOOHKFLP10 until Jul 31, 2023. Includes all of my eight-week courses, semester-long classes, and summer camps. 

Have you ever wondered about how interactions between organisms can greatly impact our environment?  For example, how removing an ecosystem's top predator can greatly impact the rest of the food chain.  Or how natural disasters such as fires, pollution and landslides can have severe impacts on an entire ecosystem of organisms and wildlife. Or how the presence of one organism can alter the behavior of another.  
In this class, students will be introduced to the dynamics of environmental food chains and how the addition or removal of one keystone organism can affect the entire balance.  Students will look at topics such as invasive species from pollution, predator and prey interactions between organisms, the breakdown of habitats, food chains, and human impacts on wildlife.   Students will get an introduction to how habitat fragmentation processes can cause decreased animal population numbers, possibly leading to a species at risk of endangerment. We will also look at factors that have impacted populations of organisms such as density, dispersal, growth, and mortality rates, and if anything can be done to change that. In conclusion, students will look at what has been done in some areas of the world to help these changing environments. 

Week 1: Biotic & Abiotic Factors
Week 2: Animal Populations
Week 3: Ecological Interactions
Week 4: Food Webs & Food Chains
Week 5: Community Structures & Biodiversity
Week 6: Energy Systems
Week 7: Biochemical Cycles
Week 8: Human Impacts on Ecosystems
Week 9: Ecological Succession
Week 10: Invasive Species & Their Impacts
Week 11: Population Dynamics
Week 12: Environmental Change

Students will work with Nearpod, an interactive software program that allows students to participate in discussion boards, answer short quizzes, and watch interactive videos that pertain to course material.  There are no pre-requisites for this course, just a love for animals and the environment.
Students will also work with CK-12 an interactive learning platform, that allows students to answer practice tests, read articles, and work in interactive textbooks. Assignments will be assigned in this platform weekly. Each student will be provided with their own login information to access their assignments and readings, which the teacher will set up. 
In this 4 week course, students will have one recording per week and receive articles corresponding to those recordings. The recordings will be posted by the date the class is scheduled, so for example, if your class is on a Saturday the recordings will be posted by the end of the day on Saturday therefore the students can choose when they would like to view them. The length of the class can be extended if needed to allow students to have time to view recordings and access materials.