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As a current Early Childhood Education major who has a passion for teaching about the importance of ecosystems, what are some good tricks/ideas for bringing that subject in at an earlier grade level? 

I've seen lots of lessons on rainforests for younger students, but perhaps they should also focus on the 'ecosystems' that directly affect them in school: students in the school building, the classroom, the schoolyard or neighborhood. What are the physical features of the environment? Who lives there? How do the physical characteristics affect the living things? What kind of interactions take place there? What changes or stays the same in this environment? Why? How are the living things affected? How do the living things change/affect the environment? Just some thoughts.... Mary B

I would focus on the environment at school. If there is a garden or outdoor area that has nature such as grass, rocks, dirt etc. Have them make a connection that it’s an ecosystem that has many factors connecting it together. Explore the organisms that can be found in the ecosystem, having the students investigate their space gets them motivated to guide their own learning. We have an outdoor area with trees, shrubs, grass and dirt two students found an earthworm and were so excited, the picked it up used the magnifying glass and began to describe how it looked and felt. I asked them what they thought the earthworm was doing in the dirt, and I received a variety of answers. They began to explore the rest of the are and found different bugs that  had them asking a variety of questions about what they were called and why were they in the area. I used those questions to teach them about ecology.