Andrew Morris · Grade 6 teacher · Ontario
Teaching with EcoGEM
A Grade 6 inquiry sequence for EcoGEM Lab
Begin with the explanation students already have, then give them a reason to reconsider it. This sequence adapts Andrew Morris’s EcoGEM design: a short orientation followed by competition, connected food webs, and disturbance. Each lesson returns to Generate–Evaluate–Modify so students connect what they predicted with evidence and a revised explanation.
Begin with student thinking
Explain how a change can travel through an ecosystem, using a food-web pathway and evidence from more than one model step.
Use the simulation to make an explanation testable. Ask students to commit to a prediction before running it, then treat a surprising result as a reason to investigate.
- Plan one 10–15 minute orientation and three 40–55 minute lessons. Work in pairs, then compare explanations with another pair. Swap the driver and evidence-recorder roles halfway through each lesson.
- Open EcoGEM for the embedded lab and notebook. The standalone lab is useful for projection or free investigation. Enter the lesson’s question in Our question below the embedded lab.
- Check that students can identify a producer and a consumer, follow an arrow from food to consumer, and read a line graph. Use drawings and oral explanations before requiring written responses.
- Rehearse each setup. Start fresh for each fair comparison and hold resources, starting abundances, and run length constant unless one of these is the variable being tested.
- Run advances to the next 100-step mark; Step advances once. Reset restarts the current configuration at step 0. The Presets button restores the selected starting preset. Neither deletes a kept comparison. Model steps are not real days.
Lesson 0 · Learn the three views
Today the goal is to learn the instrument, not to find the right ecological answer. Show how the food web, illustrated habitat, and graph describe the same selected organisms in different ways.
- Choose Atlantic Ocean and Build your own. Click Phytoplankton and include it. Before running, locate its portrait, name, and graph legend entry.
- Press Run once. Pause if you need discussion time. Use Inspect and Data table to read the abundance at a selected step, then return to the latest step.
- Demonstrate the full name and diet on a species click. Explain that arrows show food moving to a consumer; no arrow does not prove that a relationship never occurs in nature.
- Turn scene motion off and on. Its depth and movement are illustrative; positions, collisions, portrait counts, and sizes are not measurements of animal behaviour or population size.
Lesson 1 · Competition and coexistence
Return to the producer from the orientation. Now place two producers in the same system. They share a resource limit, so a change to one may affect the other even without a feeding arrow between them.
How can a consumer change the relationship between two producers?
Set up the investigation
Choose Sahara Desert and Producers only. Grasses and Saltbush are on; all consumers are off. Keep Rainfall at 100%.
Generate · Make an explanation visible
Before running, ask whether both producers can persist and what evidence would show competition. Each student draws a predicted pair of curves and explains the relationship in words.
Evaluate · Test it against evidence
- Run to step 100 and record both producers at steps 25, 50, and 100. Keep comparison. For an optional test of competition, repeat with one producer alone and compare the same step.
- Restore Producers only to start a new run. Include Locust; retain its Grasses feeding link. Predict again before pressing Run.
- Run to step 100. Inspect the current and kept values in Data table. Ask which change is direct consumption and which might follow from changed competition.
Modify · Revise the explanation
Have pairs revise a two-step explanation: a consumer changes one producer; that can change the resources available to the other. Ask them to attach a numerical comparison to each claim, then exchange explanations with another pair.
Next, follow the effects beyond the producers. A change can reach organisms that share no direct feeding link.
Lesson 2 · From a chain to a connected web
Start with a chain students can trace with one finger. Then add a branch. The purpose is to coordinate several relationships, rather than assume that every organism has only one cause of change.
Can one new feeding pathway change several populations at once?
Set up the investigation
Choose Atlantic Ocean and Build your own. Include Phytoplankton, Copepods, Herring, and Cod. Their active pathway is Phytoplankton → Copepods → Herring → Cod. Keep Nutrient supply at 100%.
Generate · Make an explanation visible
Ask each pair to predict which populations might change early and later. They should explain their prediction using the food web before observing the graph.
Evaluate · Test it against evidence
- Run the four-organism chain to step 100. Record values at steps 25, 50, and 100; keep the run for comparison.
- Include Krill, then Reset to step 0. Leave its selected Phytoplankton and Copepods links on; Herring can also eat Krill. Predict how this new branch could alter the original chain.
- Run to step 100. Compare at the same steps. Look for two changes happening together and an indirect change elsewhere in the web.
Modify · Revise the explanation
Ask students to explain a pathway involving at least three organisms. They should identify where the evidence supports their original idea and where the explanation needs another cause or a different sequence.
A web is now familiar. Next, disturb an established run and compare it with an unchanged baseline.
Lesson 3 · Disturbance and indirect effects
Show the full web and ask students to identify a change that might travel beyond a predator’s immediate prey. Treat the first run as a baseline, not as proof that the ecosystem is permanently stable.
What happens beyond the prey when a predator is removed?
Set up the investigation
Choose Amazon Rainforest and Full ecosystem. Keep Plant productivity at 100%. The disturbance will be removal of Harpy eagle at step 100.
Generate · Make an explanation visible
Students predict a direct effect on Howler or Sloth and a possible indirect effect on a producer. Ask them to state what would count as evidence against their prediction.
Evaluate · Test it against evidence
- Run the unchanged full ecosystem to step 200 by pressing Run twice. Keep comparison. This supplies an undisturbed baseline beyond the future disturbance point.
- Reset the unchanged full web and run to step 100. Remove Harpy eagle at that step. Do not reset after removal; continue to step 200.
- Compare current and kept runs at steps 100, 125, 150, and 200. Record two consumers and at least one producer. Distinguish immediate removal from later changes.
Modify · Revise the explanation
Students revise their food-web explanation with a supported multi-step pathway and one model limitation. Challenge them to identify what additional evidence would be needed before making the same claim about a real forest.
Transfer the reasoning to an Ontario biodiversity issue using real observations and research, rather than treating the simulation as a forecast.
Listen for a change in reasoning
At each checkpoint, record the organism, model step, baseline abundance, changed-run abundance, and the relationship that could explain the difference. A direction or a single screenshot is not enough on its own.
| Organism | Step | Baseline | Changed run | What this supports |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | — | — | — |
| — | — | — | — | — |
| — | — | — | — | — |
Exit ticket: One relationship I understand differently now is… My evidence at step… is… One assumption I would check outside the model is…
| What you hear | Evidence in the explanation | Next teacher prompt |
|---|---|---|
| Describing | Names organisms and a graph trend, but gives little evidence for how the change travels. | Ask for a matched-step value and one food-to-consumer link. |
| Explaining | Connects a direct and an indirect effect using a food-web pathway and a numerical comparison. | Ask what other relationship could also contribute to the change. |
| Reasoning about a system | Coordinates multiple relationships, compares baseline and disturbance, revises an explanation, and names a limitation. | Ask which real-world observations would test the revised explanation. |
Make participation possible
- Use colour together with organism names and line patterns. Exact values are available in Data table; students do not need to judge a crowded graph by eye.
- Offer oral, annotated-diagram, or written explanations. Provide frames such as ‘When ___ changes, ___ may change because ___. At step ___, the comparison shows ___.’
- Disable scene motion when it distracts. The lab respects reduced-motion preferences and can be operated using keyboard controls.
- With limited devices, project one run, collect individual predictions first, and have groups propose the next controlled change. Avoid allowing the quickest operator to replace everyone’s reasoning.
- Download notes and data before leaving a shared device. The notebook saves locally and has no teacher dashboard or automatic submission.
Connect the lesson to Ontario Grade 6
Connections are paraphrased from Ontario’s 2022 Grade 6 Science and Technology curriculum. This sequence supports selected expectations; it does not cover the full biodiversity strand. Genetic variation, coding, and a local action project require additional learning.
| Expectation | Connection | Use in this sequence |
|---|---|---|
| B2.5 | Interrelationships among organisms and their environment. | Core: explain feeding, competition, and resource effects. |
| A1.2; A1.5 | Investigation and communication of findings. | Core: predict, control a variable, compare evidence, revise. |
| B2.4; B1.1 | Community resilience and the consequences of biodiversity loss. | Supported discussion; connect model results to real evidence. |
| B2.6; B1.2 | Local invasive species and action on a biodiversity issue. | Extension: research an Ontario example, then plan and carry out an appropriate class response. |
Read the official Grade 6 curriculum ↗
Bring the reasoning home
Investigate a documented Ontario example such as zebra or quagga mussels. Establish that it is introduced and harmful using a reliable local source; compare its reported effects with a pathway from the lab. Consider different community perspectives, then plan and carry out a feasible class action, such as a sourced prevention-information display. Assess the real evidence and the action separately from the simulation.
Keep the model’s limits visible
The food webs combine selected observations from different places, seasons, and life stages. Some nodes represent groups. Feeding links do not specify how often a prey is eaten. Numerical parameters are educational choices, and the model omits migration, decomposers, genetic variation, and many environmental processes. A resource slider is not a climate forecast. Repeating an identical deterministic run does not supply independent field replicates.
Teaching lineage and sources
This guide adapts Morris’s EcoGEM teaching design to newly written simulation code and newly created artwork. Ginger Booth’s Ecology Lab inspired the linked food-web, habitat, and population-graph approach. The simulator and this guide do not bundle the original lab’s code, artwork, or lesson text; the original remains linked and credited. Attribution is acknowledgement, not a licence or legal clearance.
- Morris, A. (2025). EcoGEM: Developing ecological systems thinking through interactive food web simulations [Course design paper, University of British Columbia]. Source ↗
- Ontario Ministry of Education. (2022). The Ontario curriculum, Grades 1–8: Science and technology (Grade 6, pp. 146–150). Source ↗
- Booth, G. (2015). Ecology Lab [HTML5 simulation]. The Habitable Planet. (Original work published 2006) Source ↗
- Ontario’s Invading Species Awareness Program. (n.d.). Zebra and quagga mussels. Source ↗
- Morris, A. (2026). EcoGEM Lab: Model notes and feeding-link evidence. Source ↗
Read the full original-work acknowledgement and development history →