Storylines Available
The Sky is Failing
Shane wants to be a biodome supervisor one day, and their first assignment is a doozy: manage a biodome that's gone without sunlight for two whole weeks! In this storyline, students learn about how photosynthesis enables plants to create their own food, and that sunlight plays a vital role in this process.
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A Balanced Diet
Students examine the process of decomposition and digestion in this storyline, using their knowledge to create food webs outlining the relationships between producers, primary and secondary consumers, and decomposers within an ecosystem.
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Night of the Living Detritus
Using the brand-new Antifier, Cherie plans to do a deep-dive into one of the Amazon's ant colonies. Unfortunately, something strange seems to be happening to the ants: they're turning into zombies! Students figure out what is going on and make recommendations for what should be done!
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Seal of Disapproval
Captain Nenson is worried about the Pacific Ocean biodome's seal, Ronan. She isn't eating and seems to be in pain. Other fish seem to be affected, but Ronan is the sickest, even though all she eats is fish!
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Sandbox: Build an Ecosystem
Build a thriving ecosystem from scratch
Students start with an empty ecosystem and build it up from scratch.
Add species to an ecosystem, after which they begin to eat and reproduce. Start with an empty, barren land and create a thriving ecosystem over time.
Choose from five varied ecosystems
Choose an ecosystem for local relevance and/or comparing patterns across ecosystems
Choose from the Mojave Desert, Amazon Rainforest, Great Plains Grassland, Himalayan Forest, and Alaskan Tundra. Each ecosystem has the same patterns, based on ecological roles, but different species that will impact the specific behaviors seen.
The simulation includes rich features of ecosystems
Many factors, focusing on interdependent relationships, are included in the simulation.
Animals need to eat, based on their preferences for food, and will even share kills. They'll reproduce, and have a maturity time period as they grow. Plants also have reproduction cycles, needing pollination in order to reproduce; if the plants fruit, they also need fruit eaten in order to achieve max reproduction!
Suggested activities teachers can use
Use our set of suggested activities to help ensure students achieve learning outcomes.
We've made an entire pre-made sequence of suggested activities to help you build up your students' knowledge through the Ecology Sandbox! Start students playing and let them encounter their first problems first. Then you can start layering in models, data collection, and other activities to build their knowledge.
Download the Teaching Guide
Complete the form to receive the teacher guide for the sandbox with detailed feature introductions, game UI guide, in-class activities to supplement the learning, and more!
NGSS Standards
Overview
Here’s a quick overview of how the Modules available in Tyto Online map to the Next Generation Science Standards.
Get Full Content Map
Want to read the full details about all the content in Tyto Online, and how it addresses the NGSS standards? Complete the form below for the download of our full PDF content map document.
