What are ecosystems?

From Smile and Learn

What are ecosystems?
5 min3rd5thScience
access

Summary

Defines an ecosystem as living things and their environment working together, with examples from forests to ponds.

Viewer safety

All ages

Gentle animated educational content, safe to show cold; still worth a quick preview to match it to your lesson.

Our rating is a quick teacher-to-teacher guide — preview before showing.

Teaching resources

Discussion questions

Talk about it

An ecosystem is all the living things in a place plus the water, air, soil, and sunlight they share. Each part depends on the others.

  1. What living and non-living things make up a pond ecosystem?
  2. How do plants and animals in an ecosystem depend on each other?
  3. What might happen if one part of an ecosystem disappeared?

Quick work-a-long

Vocabulary: ecosystem, environment, living, depend.

Try it: Pick an ecosystem (forest, desert, pond). List two living and two non-living parts of it.