Terrarium Ecosystem

Terrarium Ecosystem is a small closed habitat. Students drag a plant, cricket or frog into the glass and can pick animals up to move or remove them. Plants need light and moisture to grow and seed, crickets eat plants and frogs eat crickets. Each animal has an energy store that fills when it eats, drains as it moves, allows breeding when full and ends in death at zero. Sliders set sunlight, buttons mist the terrarium and sprinkle seeds, and readouts show population counts, balance, moisture and days. It shows how producers, herbivores and predators depend on each other.

• Drag a plant, a few crickets and one frog into the terrarium and watch the population readout.
• Add too many frogs and see what happens to the crickets and then to the frogs.
• Change the Sunlight slider and watch how plant growth affects the Balance readout.
• Press Mist the terrarium and Sprinkle seeds to rescue a dry or empty habitat.
• Read What is happening to explain a sudden change in the numbers.

1. 1Identify producers, herbivores and predators in a habitat.
2. 2Predict how changing one population affects the others.
3. 3Explain why a stable ecosystem needs more plants than herbivores and more herbivores than predators.
4. 4Describe how sunlight and moisture limit plant growth.

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