Students:
a. Recall that ecosystems consist of communities of interdependent organisms and abiotic components of the environment (ACSSU176)
b.Outline using examples how matter is cycled through ecosystems such as nitrogen (ACSSU176)
c. Describe how energy flows through ecosystems, including input and output through food webs (ACSSU176)
d. Analyze how changes in some biotic and abiotic components of an ecosystem affect populations and/or communities
e. Assess ways that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ cultural practices and knowledge of the environment contribute to the conservation and management of sustainable ecosystems
f. Evaluate some examples in ecosystems, of strategies used to balance conserving, protecting and maintaining the quality and sustainability of the environment with human activities and needs
Part A: Research Diary
Students are to complete the ‘Research Diary’ and data collection requirements link to your scientific
investigations. This task requires you to make scientific observations around your local environment based on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges and practices that may be lost as a result of increased urban sprawl and the upcoming site destruction. The ‘Research Diary’ will form the bulk if the data collection processes you as a scientist will undertake. Your concerns are that the developers are wanting to remove a large section of local parklands and destroy many of the habitats on this Dharug site. Your research work will provide the information that is required for you to then write an ‘Environmental Impact Study’. You must work and act like a scientist working in the field and researching other information back at your office computer. This task will also require you to document via digital technologies (ICT’s) some of the plants and animals you locate in your local area. Each section of your diary will give you more information about the requirements of each observation or scientific study you needed to undertake to make your case to the council.
Part 2: Environmental Impact Study Research Findings Report
Take the lead and produce an Environmental Impact Study report. The report requires you to now
reorganize this information so that it is in a format suitable to be published on a council website for further consultation. Your report must provide the reader with some information about the site, and how both the name of the site and the local ecosystems are going to be impacted upon, how Aboriginal community concerns are also part of the larger concerns of the community and why this issue requires much more consultation with even more stakeholders.
