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Elizabeth Stover

Elizabeth Stover, a writing teacher and author of 15 years experience, has a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Maryland. Her split minor includes Sociology/Writing. Ms Stover has been published by Creative Teaching Press in the books "Science Tub Topics" and "Math Tub Topics."

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According to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), an ecosystem includes all the living and nonliving things sharing a common space, depending on and interacting with each other. It may be as small as tiny pond or as large as an entire forest. Scientists often classify ecosystems by the type of larger biome in which they exist such as a forest, urban or coastal ecosystem.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) supports the education of kids as they learn about ecosystems and protecting natural resources for future generations. Have kids explore the information on the EPA Student Center website or in books to learn more about the way that plants, animals and nonliving objects exist interdependently in the ecosystem.

Kids can choose an ecosystem and create a model diorama in a shoebox. Use paper and markers to create a background and clay to create three-dimensional objects. Do not fasten the clay objects to the diorama. Have kids share their dioramas and take out one object at a time. They then discuss what depends on that object and whether the rest of the ecosystem would suffer if that object disappeared.

Just walking outside to investigate the ecosystem in which a child lives or a local ecosystem such as a stream, garden, orchard or forest is an educational activity for kids. When conditions prohibit this, or in addition to an actual field trip, try investigating some of the virtual scientific field trips available online (see Resources). Typically, these may include movie tour, web cams, live chats, question forums and downloads.

While visiting the ecosystem, kids can pretend to be a biologist. In preparation, help kids create, a pretend scientific field journal in which to write down or draw ecosystem observations during their visit. They make drawings or notes about the living and nonliving things, interdependencies, problems or unexpected objects they observe in the ecosystem. Take a camera for pictures to add to the journal. Once back from the trip, have them draw a conclusion about the health of the ecosystem based on their observations.

After discussion, field trips, videos or research, provide magazines from which kids can cut pictures to create ecosystem collages. Wildlife and outdoor magazines provide the best pictures for this project though most magazines contain a few outdoor, plant or animal pictures. Have kids search for pictures of living and nonliving objects found in a particular ecosystem. Kids can draw a background of vegetation and earth forms such as hills or shore with crayons then cut and glue pictures to create an ecosystem collage.

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