What Is Eating This Gecko?

The below image is a timelapse of a dead gecko (type of lizard) in a garden over a day and a half. The small brown things crawling on it are ants. Use this phenomenon to answer the questions that follow.
NGSS Phenomena: A time-lapse of a dead gecko being eaten by ants. At the end, all that's left are the gecko's bones.

1. Death is an important part of an ecosystem because can be by other organisms.

Drag the answers below into the grey placeholders above

recycled
made into plants
made into new atoms
created
destroyed
matter

2. What role do the ants have in your model (producers, consumers, and decomposers) ? Explain how energy is transferred in the gif and predict how matter will be incorporated back into the ecosystem. Justify your response by using evidence from what you’ve seen before and what you observe with this phenomenon.

3. Draw a model in the space below to explain the path of matter that shows:



1. Where the matter came from that was used to create this lizard
2. Where the matter goes after the lizard.

Color

Width

4. Explain how your model shows the movement of matter from one place to another within the ecosystem the lizard was living in.

5. Explain 2 ways that the matter from this gecko will go back into the ecosystem.

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This matching question aligns to the following standards

  • LS2.B: Cycle of Matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems

  • MS-LS2-3

  • Energy and Matter: Flows, Cycles, and Conservation

  • Developing and Using Models

This free response question aligns to the following standards

  • LS2.B: Cycle of Matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems

  • Developing and Using Models

  • MS-LS2-3

  • Energy and Matter: Flows, Cycles, and Conservation

This drawing question aligns to the following standards

  • LS2.B: Cycle of Matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems

  • Developing and Using Models

  • MS-LS2-3

  • Energy and Matter: Flows, Cycles, and Conservation

This free response question aligns to the following standards

  • MS-LS2-3

  • Developing and Using Models

  • LS2.B: Cycle of Matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems

  • Energy and Matter: Flows, Cycles, and Conservation

This free response question aligns to the following standards

  • MS-LS2-3

  • Developing and Using Models

  • LS2.B: Cycle of Matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems

  • Energy and Matter: Flows, Cycles, and Conservation

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