Chapters and Contents

Unit 1: Campus Niche

• What is a niche (or microclime)?
• How can you tell one niche from another?
• How do different types of plants reproduce?
• What special features allow particular animals or plants to thrive in different spaces?
• What are the challenges of mapping a 3-dimensional world on a 2-dimensional page?

Unit 2: Oregon Habitats

• What is a habitat?
• What unique features distinguish each habitat?
• What are adaptations?
• How do creatures adapt to their particular habitats?
• How do plants adapt to their particular habitats?
• What are the relationships between and importance of producers, consumers, and decomposers?
• What is a food chain?
• What is the importance of plants?

Unit 3: Human Body

• How do different people think differently?
• How do our bodies process nutrients, air, blood, information, and waste?
• How does each system in the body interact with others?
• What are the mechanisms that allow one particular body system to function?
• How does the human eye work?
• How is the human body similar to and different from creatures you have studied before?
• How does the brain use different parts for different tasks?

Unit 4: World Biomes

• What is a biome?
• How does a biome differ from a niche and a habitat?
• What creates bands of biomes around the globe?
• How do wind currents shape global climate?
• How does the axis of the earth affect global climate
• How and why do animal and plant adaptations develop over time?
• How are humans impacting the environment?
• How are people and cultures shaped by the biomes in which they reside?
• What is a map projection?
• What are the challenges of mapping a three-dimensional globe in two dimensions?

Unit 5: Oceanography

• What guides the classification of ocean invertebrates into phyla and class?
• How can we piece together the parts of a totally new system into a comprehensible whole?
• What is the generating power behind tides?
• How do tidal zones reflect niches?
• What systems have ocean invertebrates developed for digestion, defense, reproduction, and respiration?