Transporte de materia y flujo de energía

Actividad 1: Transporte de materia y flujo de energía

• Ecosystems are defined as a set of biotic and abiotic factors that relate to each other.
• Biotic factors are living components of an ecosystem such as plants, animals, fungi and bacteria.
• Abiotic factors are the non-living chemical and physical parts of the environment that affect living organisms and the functioning of ecosystems like sunlight, water, temperature, atmosphere, etc.

Ciencias Naturales Mayo

• The graphic exercise shows the flow of energy, starting from the energy received by plants from the sun, and how it is transferred from one living being to another.

Bioelementos

• Living beings are constituted by the same chemical elements.
• About 25 elements in the earth's crust are components of living beings, called bioelements, grouped into three categories based on abundance.

Bioelementos primarios o principales

• Primary bioelements are carbon (C), hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), and nitrogen (N).
• They constitute 95% of the total mass of living matter.

Bioelementos secundarios

• Secondary bioelements are magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca), sodium (Na), and chlorine (Cl).
• They make up about 4.5% of living beings.

Oligoelementos

• Trace elements appear in small quantities and intervene in metabolism.

Red trófica

• A food web should be created using the species mentioned in the text.

Energía

• Manifestations of kinetic, potential, caloric, and chemical energy can be found in certain situations.

Bioelementos primarios

• Structures that are put in place for obtaining primary bioelements should be identified in a selected organism.

Eliminación de agua

• Water elimination is a process needed for organisms.

Eliminación de materia orgánica

• The body eliminates unnecessary organic matter.

Ciclos biogeoquímicos

• During an explanation with the students, the teacher incorporates bioelements into a graphic, showing the differences between organic and inorganic matter.

Materia y energía en los ecosistemas

• All living beings need matter and energy to carry out their vital functions.
• Energy used by living beings ultimately comes from the Sun and is consumed but not reused.
• Energy that passes through an ecosystem is unidirectional.
• Organic matter from remains and corpses of living beings is transformed by microorganisms into inorganic matter.
• This inorganic matter is consumed by autotrophs and heterotrophs, in turn, when the latter die, their remains are transformed back into inorganic matter, constituting a closed cycle in the ecosystem.

El ciclo de la materia en los ecosistemas

• The presence of producers, consumers, and decomposers in ecosystems enables a cyclical flow of matter.
• Chemical elements that are part of living beings return to the inorganic world and are reused.
• Carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen constitute 99% of living matter.
• Movements of inorganic substances circulate throughout the different trophic levels.

El carbono

• Carbon is the first and main element of the structure of living beings.
• It's found combined in compounds like carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and nucleic acids.
• Plants absorb carbon dioxide from the air which is transformed into organic compounds (sugars) during photosynthesis.

El oxígeno

• The atmosphere contains 21% oxygen, a fundamental reserve for living organisms.
• Oxygen is also part of water and all types of organic molecules.
• The oxygen cycle is closely linked to the carbon cycle.
• Carbon assimilation by plants (photosynthesis) results in the release of oxygen into the atmosphere.

El agua

• Water is the most important substance in nature that goes through a cycle so it can circulate over the planet’s surface.
• During evaporation, solar energy turns liquid water into vapor.
• Condensation is the transformation of water vapor into drops or ice crystals, and later it falls as rain.

El nitrógeno

• Nitrogen is an abundant element in the atmosphere and soil.
• Most organisms cannot use nitrogen directly, so it's converted into simple compounds through a cycle involving bacteria, fungi, plants, and animals.
• Atmospheric nitrogen is captured by nitrifying bacteria that convert it into ammonia compounds, nitrates in the soil.

Actividad 3: Contaminación ambiental

• The activity involves a field trip to search for images and situations affecting the environment, to record data.

Ciclo del carbono gaseoso

• Carbon is a rare element in the non-living world, making up about 18% of living things.
• Plants absorb carbon dioxide and reduce it to organic compounds (carbohydrates, proteins, lipids), using sunlight through photosynthesis.

Ciclo del Oxígeno gaseoso

• Oxygen accounts for 20% of the earth's atmosphere, meeting the needs of terrestrial respirators and aquatic organisms.
• In respiration, oxygen acts as the final acceptor for electrons removed from carbon atoms in food, producing water.
• The cycle is completed in photosynthesis: light energy captures electrons from water molecules, which reduces carbon atoms, producing molecular oxygen.

Ciclo del Nitrógeno gaseoso

• Nitrogen causes immense deposit of this element in the atmosphere because it makes up 78% of the air.
• Nitrogen is useless to living things by itself, except when combined with other elements because it comprises most proteins.
• The entire cycle depends on bacteria, fungi, and blue-green algae that transform the nitrogen gas in the atmosphere into nitrogenous compounds in order to be utilizes by a life forms.
• The nitrogen is available when plants die because the organisms dissolve the nitrogen.