So for anyone who doesn't know, the domino effect is when you take one thing out of something and it affects everything. For instance, when you take a domino out of a line, the entire line of dominos won't go down. We used these dominoes to represent an ecosystem because if you take one thing out of the ecosystem, it would affect everything. For example, if you take away the sun, every living thing in the ecosystem would die. In fact, the entire world would die. You can say the same thing for water. Even if you take away a primary predator, it would affect the ecosystem as there would be an overabundance of a certain animal which could be bad. After doing this project, we feel like we learned more about not only ecosystems but food webs and food chains as well. We learned that the littlest things could have a huge effect on everything.  Some things that stood out to us was the fact that some animals that you don't think are important to an ecosystem really are very important. For instance, we didn't think flies were important but if you take out flies, animals like frogs wouldn't be able to eat them which could cause frogs to decrease in population. Then animals like snakes would decrease and it would keep going and going. Something we are still wondering is can there be an ecosystem that isn't affected if we take something out of it.

My Reflection:

This unit has blown me away with crazy facts and statistics. I’ve learned how we humans are making unhealthy decisions-- decisions that may seem innocent-- but are actually harmful to our planet and future generations to come. Some crazy things I’ve learned is farmers barely exist anymore, the amount of meat Americans consume in a week--let alone in a month, how if our diets of so much meat continues then chickens, cows, and pigs will out live humans, humans and global warming, and basically how everything we eat/use affects the environment someway, somehow, and could hurt us in the long run.

I was--still am-- astonished by these facts and statistics I’ve learned this unit. This unit has definitely changed my mind on how I go about life for the greater good. I’m wondering if others would do same with all this newfound knowledge.

Our Citations: - “Why Population Matters.” The Population Institute, www.populationinstitute.org/resources/whypopulationmatters/ - “As World's Population Booms, Will Its Resources Be Enough for Us?” National Geographic, National Geographic Society, 21 Sept. 2014, news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140920-population-11billion-demographicsanthropocene/. - “Population Growth Is Still The Biggest Problem Facing Humanity.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 4 July 2010, www.businessinsider.com/population-growth-must-stop-2010-7. - “Impacts of Population Growth, Economic Development, and Technical Change on Global Food Production and Consumption.” Egyptian Journal of Medical Human Genetics, Elsevier, 24 Dec. 2010, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X10001575. - Bakalar, Nicholas. “Air Pollution May Pose Serious Risks to Young Children.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 13 Apr. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/well/family/air-pollution-may-pose-serious-risks-to-youn g-children.html?rref=collection/timestopic/Air Pollution&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=stream&module=stream_unit& version=latest&contentPlacement=4&pgtype=collection. - Wimmer, Harold P. “Trucks That Pollute.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 25 Feb. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/02/25/opinion/trucks-pollutants-epa.html?rref=collection/timest opic/Air Pollution&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=stream&module=stream_unit& version=latest&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=collection. - Marks, Joshua. “The 6 Most Pressing Environmental Issues-and What You Can Do to Help Solve Them.” Inhabitat Green Design Innovation Architecture Green Building, Inhabitat, 1 Apr. 2018,

During the ecology benchmark, I learned a lot. It was quite fun putting a visual representation of a rain forest.  The main point that I learned throughout this benchmark was the food webs, and putting them together. It was interesting to see what ate what and what fungi's where in the food chains as well. When creating this visual representation of the rain forest we did a before and after on threads of the rain Forest.

I've learned many things whilst studying this topic and I have to say It was very fun/insightful. Due to the fact that I was interested in said thing made it even more exciting finally getting to pitch in. I thoroughly enjoyed the Ecology Portion or unit was amazingly crazy cool. I left the unit with numerous amounts of knowledge in the topic. The only take away from this unit was the numerous amounts of reading all though I must admit "some" of it was necessary. One thing that really stuck with me was the dangerous dietary changes and how they effect not only humans but our Population, Community, and Ecosystem. I'am specifically talking about the "Food Matters" articles we had to read. Everything said in those passages I heavily related to because I thought about those touchy subjects the same way. I really enjoyed the multiple solutions presented to us as well as presenting our own in the little mini project. One question that'll stick with me is what will we do when the glaciers/Ice caps melt and the water level rises? 

For this Quarter 4 Benchmark we were assigned to research one of the major topics that we studied with a unique issue. As a group decided to look more closer on the topic the over population growth. Many keys materials that stood out to me was that one major cause of population growth is the rate of births are higher than the death rate. This was surprising to me because of what I am observing on social media, the news, and in my everyday life, the rate of lives lost/deaths seem to be increasing  as years go on. Something I am still wondering is, what will happen if the population increases to the point where everyone isn't able to receive the everyday essential needs to live?

Something that stood out to me during the creation of this project is the fact that we all know that the world is overpopulated, but what can we really do to change the world and make things not populated? I believe that you really can't put a limit on population. What if things become underpopulated because that's possible. I think that the world needs people to thrive in my opinion. I'm wondering if we can keep the population the way it is and change other habits? Would that help make the world a better place? We can say that it could, but scientifically would it?