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An ecosystem is an area where living things - microbes, plants and animals - interact with each other and with their physical and chemical environment - sunlight, air, soil, rocks and water. The combination of all of these elements creates unique ecosystems around the world.

Living components in an ecosystem are producers (green plants), consumers (animals), and decomposers (micro-organisms). Each has a role to play in keeping the ecosystem healthy and balanced. To lose one, or even a significant amount of one, places the ecosystem in danger.

Non-living components in the ecosystem include light, heat, air, water, and minerals from the soil.

The source of all energy in Earth’s ecosystems is sunlight. The energy flows through the ecosystem in one direction – sunlight to plants to animals who eat the plants to the microbes that break down the fallen plants and animals.

In a healthy ecosystem this energy flow forms a circle, with all matter being recycled naturally, replenishing the ecosystem over and over again.

The sun shines down on the coniferous forest, and the rainstorms drop moisture to the soil that then feeds the tree from its roots. Once fed by light, water, and the minerals from the soil, the trees create :

Pine cones with seeds for food, homes for animals, oxygen that animals breathe, a green collector to attract more precipitation, and a root system that stabilizes the soil.

The pine cones then feed small animals like squirrels, who are then food for larger animals like wolves, or eagles.

When the wolves and eagles die and fall to the ground, their bodies become part of the soil as they are broken down by the microbes in the soil.

This soil, enriched by the fallen pine needles and the fallen animals, then feeds the trees along with the sunlight, and the process starts all over again. Once fed by light, water, and the minerals from the soil, the trees create …..

1. Find and clean a large clear, plastic soda bottle. With an adults help, cut off the bottom of the bottle as smooth as possible.
2. Find a plastic cup – clear if you can – that will fit up inside the bottle / or that the bottle will fit down over.
3. Punch a few small drainage holes in the bottom of the cup, fill with soil, and then plant a small sunflower seed or seedling in the cup. Set the cup in a shallow dish. Water it until moist but not soggy.
4. Place the seed cup near a window, cover it with the bottle that will form a tall greenhouse above and around the cup.
5. Water the cup lightly every few days as you see the soil start to dry out.
6. When the seed sprouts, water it regularly to feed it, but don’t drown it.

Once you have the sunflower seedling growing in your greenhouse, explore these concepts.

1. What parts of a natural ecosystem are at work in your greenhouse ?
2. Which arts of the ecosystem are not present in your greenhouse ?
3. Which components in your greenhouse are receiving nourishments from which other parts ?
4. If you took away one of the components, what would happen to the plant ?

Once the sunflower plant has grown tall enough to fill up a good portion of the bottle/greenhouse, transplant it to some outdoor soil where you can keep an eye on it. Water it regularly. Then note what of the following may have happened to it. Did it :

1. Grow to full height, open a flower, which turned to seed, and the birds ate the seeds ?
2. Fail to grow to its full height because you forgot to water it so it turned back into soil with out feeding an animal?
3. Get trodden on by some animal ( like your little brother? Or a bully on his bike ?) and turned back into soil with out bearing its seeds ?
4. Or ?

Whatever the outcome of the sunflower plant’s life is, if you planted it in the soil outdoors, be sure to turn it back into the soil with a hand spade or shovel to complete the ecosystem cycle.

Now that you understand the cycle of an ecosystem, chart out one you can observe in your school yard, or neighborhood, or backyard. Start with a plant to study, and then chart out the living and non-living components of the plant’s surrounding ecosystem. Draw the components to illustrate how they impact on one another.