Ecosystems Section 2 Icon Causal Patterns in Ecosystems
Section 2: Learning About Decay Using Cyclic Causality

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Section 2: Learning About Decay Using Cyclic Causality

This section addresses students' tendency to miss cyclic causal relationships. It helps students to realize that the same atoms are continuously recycled between the living and non-living parts of an ecosystem. This "circle of decay" is always happening. A contrast is drawn between matter, which is recycled, and energy, which is not.

Section 2 Table of Contents


©2002, President and Fellows of Harvard College, Understandings of Consequence Project