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Activity 6: The Virtual Ecosystem
Introduction: What is an ecosystem?
An ecosystem is a place where plants and animals live together in the same environment. In this activity, you will learn more about the Virtual Ecosystem. This time, you will help a rabbit survive in the field by finding plants to eat!

Feeding your rabbit
Just like you, rabbits get hungry. Animals must eat to survive. Rabbits are herbivores, which means they eat plants. Help the rabbit find plants to eat. The graph shows the number of plants growing in the field. As the rabbit eats more plants, the graph will show fewer plants in the field.

Instructions

1. Press play . Use the up, down, left and right arrows on your keyboard to move your rabbit.

2. Your rabbit will eat when you move it over a plant. Watch the slider to see how hungry your rabbit is.

3. When your rabbit is done eating, look at the graph. What happened to the plant population?

Your challenge: Keep your rabbit alive for 30 seconds.

Time:
seconds

Hunger:

Rabbit populations
It is easy to keep one rabbit alive in a field with lots of plants. In the real world, animals must compete for their food. A large group of rabbits, called a population, lives in the Virtual Ecosystem. The rabbits in the population need to eat enough plants to stay alive and healthy.









1. Before you go to the next page, make a prediction. Do you think it will be easier or more difficult for your rabbit to survive when other rabbits are in the field? It will be easier for my rabbit to survive. It will be harder for my rabbit to survive. My rabbit’s survival will not be affected by the population. 2. Why do you think so?
Competition for resources
An entire population of rabbits will now join your rabbit in the field. All the rabbits in the population are competing for the same food. Will your rabbit find enough plants to survive?

Instructions

1. Press play . Use the up, down, left and right arrows on your keyboard to move your rabbit.

2. Your rabbit will eat when you move it over a plant. Watch the slider to see how hungry your rabbit is.

3. When your rabbit is done eating, look at the graph. What happened to the plant population as more rabbits moved into the field?
Your challenge: Keep your rabbit alive for 100 seconds.

Time:
seconds

Hunger:

Limited resources
Although you didn't see any rabbits fighting, they did have to compete for the same plants. When there is a limited number of plants for the rabbits to eat, not all rabbits will survive.











3. Look at the graph above. Between 0 and 10 seconds, what happened to the plant population? The plant population increased. The plant population decreased. The plant population stayed about the same. 4. Look at the graph above. Between 10 and 30 seconds, what happened to the plant population? The plant population increased. The plant population decreased. The plant population stayed about the same. 5. What do you think would happen to the rabbit population after another 10 seconds? The rabbit population will increase. The rabbit population will decrease. The rabbit population will stay the same.
Adding a population
Think about the Virtual Ecosystem. It is a simple ecosystem with only one type of plant and one type of animal. What would happen if we added another animal population to the field? Pretend a population of groundhogs moves in -- and these groundhogs also like to eat the same plants.




6. If there are the same number of plants in the field with groundhogs and rabbits, what do you think will happen? All the animals will survive by eating fewer plants. The plants will grow faster to produce enough for all the animals. Some of the animals will not get enough to eat and will starve.
Conclusion
Ecosystems are complex. There are lots of plants and animals living in a real ecosystem. There are nonliving parts, too! All the plants and animals in an ecosystem must compete for food and other resources.






Congratulations, you have completed The Virtual Ecosystem activity! In the next activity, you will explore how changes in the nonliving parts of the Virtual Ecosystem affect the living parts. By running experiments, you will discover how some changes can be helpful to certain living things but harmful to others.

Click the X at the top of this window to close the activity and save your work.
7. List two nonliving things in the ecosystem above. 8. List two living things in the ecosystem above.