Section 1 - The Web of Life

The world around you is constantly changing.  If you want to make intelligent choices about your future, you must understand how things have changed and what causes change.  You need to know how living organisms interact with each other and with the environment.

An article in the newspaper on October 20th, 2004, was about British scientists being concerned about rapidly declining bird populations, in particular, insect-eating birds.  One investigation is checking the possibility that insect populations are declining.  A novel way of checking the insect population uses the "Splatometer".  Nearly 40 000 drivers volunteered to take part in the investigation.  They wash their licence plate, record how far they drove, and count the number of bugs that were "splatted" on the licence plate.  The average is only one bug per eight kilometres.  More information must be gathered over a few years before the research has any relevance.

Read the introduction to Chapter 12 on page 236.  Then, read What You Will Learn, Why it is Important, and Skills You Will Use on page 237. 

This introduction will give you a further overview of what you will be covering in this section.    


Go to the next page to begin Lesson 1.