Lesson Notes By Weeks and Term v4 - SHS 3
ECOLOGY
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ECOLOGY
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Subject: Biology
Class: SHS 3
Term: 2nd Term
Week: 4
Grade code: 3.3.2.LI.2
Strand code: 3
Sub-strand code: 2
Content standard code: 3.3.2.CS.2
Indicator code: 3.3.2.LI.2
Theme: DIVERSITY OF LIVING THINGS AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT
Subtheme: ECOLOGY
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Ecology is the study of how living things interact with each other and their environment. As scientists, we cannot just look at a forest or a river and guess what is happening. We must collect data – numbers and observations – to understand the relationships and patterns. For example, how does the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Ghana know if the Odaw River is getting cleaner or more polluted? How does a cocoa farmer know which pest is most common on their farm? They collect, organise, and analyse data.
2.1 From Raw Data to Organised Data
When ecologists conduct fieldwork (e.g., using a quadrat on the school field), they first collect raw data. This is just a list of observations or numbers, and it can be messy and hard to understand.
Example of Raw Data: An ecologist used a 1m x 1m quadrat 10 times on a school football pitch to count plant species. The raw data looked like this: *Spear grass, Wire grass, Tridax, Spear grass, Spear grass, Tridax, Wire grass, Spear grass, Tridax, Spear grass*
To make sense of this, we must organise it into a Frequency Table. A frequency table shows how often each item appears. We use tally marks to help count.