Ultimate Survival Unit Reflection

Reflect on what has helped you in understanding the "big idea" of the unit.
(Big Idea: Students will understand the use and management of natural resources, the transformation of resources into human capital, goods, tools and machines as well as sustainable development of human society to maintain the delicate balance between man and the natural environment.)

What has helped me understand the "big idea" of the unit is a couple of different things. First of all, seeing everyone's presentations on the world's environmental problems helped explain a lot about the different aspects of global warming, of endangered species, and other problems. Also, watching the video really explained a lot of things. They were my favorite parts of this unit because although they were very explanatory, Food inc. and the overfishing movie made me think a lot about what exactly we're doing to this earth. It's sad to see the way we now know what we're doing, but plenty of people don't even try to stop it. I think in order for our environment to be properly saved, we need to work together as a world, not just a country or city. If just one country decides not to follow any of the measures that are there to help stop global warming or something then that already poses a huge problem, let alone if all countries except for a couple do that (which is the situation we are in now). Some main adaptations include camouflage, swelling up to double size, bright colors, fake patterns, hiding, fake smells, strange sounds, etc.

Reflect on the unit question (What is a necessity and how does an organism ensure survival of its species within its environment?) and how it relates to the unit title: Ultimate Survival.
The unit question is really what the whole thing is about! An organism requires adaptations, and useful ones, in order to survive in a certain environment. Species fight to the death just to be one of the ones that ends up surviving. Hence, the ultimate survival. Species can fight for survival, but even with the fight, eventually those species that don't have the right adaptations for the environment will be influenced by natural selection. A necessity is something that a species must have to survive. A species needs to be able to reproduce, needs to be able to excrete waste, needs a source of energy such as water, food, or sunlight. An organism is only able to survive if it has those things.

How did the unit question allow us to view survival through The Area of Interaction: Environments:(FOR EXAMPLE: The effects of one environment on another, the roles our environments play in the lives and well-being of humankind, and the effects of our actions, attitudes and constructs, such as sustainable development and conservation.)

We, as humans, have started to get used to using way too many resources, because we think that we have that luxury. Well, people starving on the streets is bad, but the reality is that just the pure fact that some people take too much of the earth and some people take too little is what helps the earth survive! The fact is, that if everybody lived like even the average person, we would need a lot more than what we have to sustain us. We took that quiz in science class, and I got 2.9, which isn’t wonderful, but better than what some people got. This tells me that people need to start to realize what they are doing. We are killing off animals for more money than we need, we are eating massed-produced meat that we know about and LIKE, and we are creating air that isn’t satisfactory for breathing much longer. For the past 20 years, we have messed up our habitat subconsciously, and now we don’t know how to fix it.

What would you have liked to do more of? Less of?
I would have liked to see more of that Overfishing movie, because it was not only very interesting and informative, but it was also very moving. Otherwise, I actually really liked this unit. Before it I knew about global warming and everything, but I didn’t really realize the magnitude of our earth’s problem. About what actually happens to all the trash that we have thrown away, about how money-hungry people can get – they want to be billionaires on the expense of literally everyone’s life, including theirs! About how all we have to do is press a button and thousands of poor creatures get killed, many of them not needed at all. About how we’ve cut down so many trees for tables and other furniture that it’s getting hard to breath, and about how at the expense of our atmosphere we have been using daily materials at twice the normal rate – just because companies make it easy.

There isn’t really anything that I wanted to do less of – I thought the unit was pretty straightforward and interesting – first we learned about how animals survive without us, and then we learned about the effect of us on the environment.

In your point of view, how well did we investigate the unit question, concept, and area of interaction? Include this in your reflection as well and give specific examples to support your opinions.

I think we investigated the unit question and concept really well – they explained so much in suck simple words, and they made me understand just how serious everything that we have been thinking was a joke is. I liked how first we learned about the things that we’ve been learning since 1^st grade, but at a different angle. I also liked how we didn’t take as many notes this unit and did more interactive projects than usual. It was a good twist. I thought it was a really good idea to have the project of different environmental situations, because it taught me a lot and I actually enjoyed researching and coming up with a presentation for it. And then, my favorite – the videos at the end were great and, although they scared me, now make me see every little thing I do as something against the environment. They were a really great way to raise awareness.