Unit 2: Organisms and Their Environment

Prerequisites

Students are advised to complete Unit 1 Biology before undertaking Unit 2 Biology.

Scope of the unit

The unit examines the relationships which exist between living things and their environment. The backdrop of the rich diversity of Australian ecosystems provides a context in which students can explore how biotic and abiotic factors affect where organisms can live, and their interactions with each other.

Students investigate the effects of human impact on ecosystems and how we can sustain them for future use.

Areas of study  

Adaptations of organisms
This area of study focuses on the kinds of environmental factors that are common to all habitats. Students investigate the adaptations of organisms that enable them to exploit the resources of their particular ecological niche. Adaptations are interrelated and can be grouped into structural, physiological, and behavioural categories.  Students make connections between the conditions that operate in habitats, the tolerance range of organisms and the distribution of organisms. They examine individual and collective behaviours that organisms exhibit and relate them to an organism's survival.

Students undertake practical investigations into selected factors operating in habitats and adaptations of organisms to those habitats. They investigate techniques and technologies that monitor and record environmental factors and track the distribution of species.

Dynamic ecosystems
With an emphasis on Australian ecosystems, this area of study focuses on the complex and finely balanced relationships that exist between living things and the resources in their particular habitat. This network of relationships can be understood as a system with inputs, processing and outputs: there is a flow of energy and cycling of matter between the living and non-living components of the ecosystem. Ecosystems do not exist in isolation from each other; they form a network of ecosystems that constitute the global system of the biosphere. Students investigate how human activities such as habitat destruction, resource use and disposal of wastes affect not only the ecological niche that individual species occupy, but the functioning of ecosystems at local and global levels.

Assessment

Outcomes	Assessment Tasks
Outcome 1 Explain and analyse the relationship between environmental factors, and adaptations and distribution of living things.	At least three of the following: practical activities multimedia or web page presentation response to a media article oral presentation annotated poster data analysis test, multiple choice and/or short answer and/or extended response.
Outcome 2 Design, conduct and report on a field investigation related to the interactions between living things and their environment, and explain how ecosystems change over time.	a written report on fieldwork (fieldwork may include a study of habitat within or outside the classroom).

Note: In addition to the Assessment Tasks, students will be required to sit an end-of-semester examination.

Reproduced by permission of the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, Victoria, Australia. Web Address www.vcaa.vic.edu.au