Key  Concepts

At Moran Outdoor School five main concepts permeate our curriculum. They provide a framework for looking at the world that the students can take with them to any ecosystem they enter. They also help us focus our observations and discoveries, make connections between our forest and freshwater ecology classes, and show the ways in which social and ecological communities relate to each other.

Cycle

Processes that repeat themselves again and again.

Every ecosystem has important cycles; understanding the cycles helps understand the ecosystem. Seeing the importance of the cycles also helps illustrate ways in which we need to be careful about how we impact specific parts of the cycle.

Adaptation

The behavior and shape of organisms is a result of each species struggle for survival and reproduction within its specific habitat and niche. Plants and animals may change their behavior to fit sudden changes in their environment. Plants and animals also change physically over the course of thousands of years as those individuals with traits that best fit a specific habitat and/or niche are more likely to survive and pass their traits on to their offspring.

Looking at the characteristics of animals and plants as adaptations helps one understand how they fit in to the world around them.

Interrelationship

The relationship between two or more things.

Within an ecosystem all living and non-living things have an affect upon each other. We can better understand the natural world if we realize that everything in it (including ourselves) is interrelated, and can better understand individual things if we look at them in the context of their relationships with other things.

Interdependence

When two or more organisms depend upon each other for survival.

Seeing the ways in which we depend upon things helps many to value those things more. Seeing the ways in which other organisms depend upon us can help us realize the affect we have on others. Understanding interdependencies in the natural world reinforces the idea that things need each other for survival.

Human Impact

The affect that humans have upon the world.

Most of the interrelationships and interdependencies in the environment that we now live in were here long before modern humans. As we enter and interact with the natural world we need to be aware of how we and other humans affect it, and look for ways to have a positive instead of a negative impact.

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