Ecosystem Thinking
📋 What it is
An ecosystem is a web of living and non-living parts — remove one and effects ripple through it all.
🗣️ Coach says
An ecosystem is nature’s classic system: plants, animals, microbes, soil, water and sun, all connected in food webs and cycles. Everything links to everything, so removing or adding one part (a predator, an invasive species) ripples through the whole web — often in surprising, hard-to-predict ways.
🧠 Memory hook
Ecosystem = a web of living + non-living parts. Remove one part → ripples through the WHOLE web.
😂 Giggle
What did the thermostat say to the room temperature?
"I've got negative feedback for you!"
😲 Whoa!
When wolves were brought back to Yellowstone, they changed the deer, then the plants, then even the RIVERS — one predator reshaped an entire ecosystem from the top down.
✅ Quick check: Why can removing one species disturb a whole ecosystem?
Say your answer out loud first — then reveal.
Everything is connected in food webs and cycles, so the loss ripples through many other parts.
Ecosystem interdependence spreads any change widely.
🧪 Try it! (2 minutes)
Trace a food web: remove one animal and follow what happens to the others — ripples spread.