Middle School Life Science

Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

Algae clean water, and students can measure it.

Algae pull nitrate out of water as they grow. That is an ecosystem service, the same one wetlands and ponds provide, and students can track it with a test strip over a week.

Buy the Brainy Briny kit Back to Middle School

MS-LS2-5 NGSS, grades 6 to 8

8.12.C Texas, grade 8

SC.7.E.6.6 Florida, grade 7

How the lab meets it

What students do that satisfies the standard

Grades 6-8

NGSS MS-LS2-5

Standard: Evaluate competing design solutions for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services.\nWhat the kit does: Students measure nitrate removal and weigh it against the harm microplastics do to a consumer. Honest fit: partial. The full standard asks students to compare competing designs, which the teacher has to frame.

Grade 8

Texas 8.12.C

Standard: Describe how biodiversity contributes to the stability and sustainability of an ecosystem and the health of the organisms within the ecosystem.\nWhat the kit does: The algae keep the water clean for the brine shrimp by taking up nitrate, and the microplastics lab shows what happens to the consumer when something harmful gets in. Students use both to describe how each part of the system keeps the others healthy. Honest fit: partial. A bag with two species is a small system, so the biodiversity part is argued from it rather than measured.

Grade 7

Florida SC.7.E.6.6

Standard: Identify the impact that humans have had on Earth, such as deforestation, urbanization, desertification, erosion, air and water quality, changing the flow of water.\nWhat the kit does: Nitrate from fertilizer and waste is one of the main ways people lower water quality. Students track algae pulling it back out, and see plastic particles end up inside a consumer. Honest fit: partial. Florida has no middle school benchmark for biodiversity or ecosystem services, so this water quality benchmark is the nearest.

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