Unit 3 and the last week of school

The class textbooks had to be turned in for inventory, so you don't need to worry about the textbook assignments for unit 3. You just need to study the learning standards and be ready to pass the test. To help you all out with the limited amount of time left in the year, I have made a written test for unit 3, as well. So, if you haven't taken the unit 3 oral test already, you can take a written test on whatever day is your period's last day of biology. And whatever grade you earn on that multiple-choice and matching test will be entered into the gradebook.

Some of the information for the unit can still be read from the two chapters of the textbook, chapters 33 and 34 available online. But you can also find lots of great info just by searching Google or YouTube for the standards and vocabulary.

So, what you need to know can be found on the Unit 3 handout, which is available at this link.

Vocabulary Test 4

Here's the vocabulary that could be on Vocabulary Test 4, which will be Friday the 13th.

Vocabulary

• biomass - the total amount of living tissue within a given trophic level
• carnivore - organism that obtains energy by killing and eating animals
• chemosynthesis - process in which chemical energy is used to produce carbohydrates
• consumer - organism that relies on consuming other organisms for its energy and food supply
• decomposer - organism that chemically breaks down and obtains energy from dead organic matter
• detritivore - organism that feeds on plant and animal remains and other dead matter
• herbivore - organism that obtains energy by eating only plants
• heterotroph - organism that obtains energy by consuming other organisms
• omnivore - organism that obtains energy by eating plants and animals
• primary producer - first producer of energy-rich compounds that are later used by other organisms
• scavenger - animal that consumes the caucuses of other animals
• transpiration - loss of water from a plant through its leaves
• trophic level - each step in a food chain or food web
• aphotic zone - dark layer of oceans where sunlight does not penetrate
• benthos - organisms that live attached to or near the bottom of lakes, streams, or oceans
• ecological succession - series of gradual changes that occur in a community following a disturbance
• limiting factor - factors that cause population growth to decrease
• photic zone - sunlight region near the surface of water
• pioneer species - first species to populate an area during success
• plankton - microscopic organisms that live in aquatic environments
• primary succession - succession that occurs in an area in which no trace of a previous community is present
• salinity - the amount of dissolved salt in water
• secondary succession - type of succession that occurs in an area that was only partially destroyed by disturbance

SQ3R notes

In today's class, I went over how to take SQ3R notes, which is a great system of note-taking designed specifically for studying from text books. If you were in class, then we created notes for 2.1 together. But, if you were absent, you can get a basic overview from the video below.