Define the subtle differences between the environment and an ecosystem. The environment is a living subject that changes over time, seasons and a multitude of other causative factors. An environment is the accumulation of information that is within, encompasses or affects the designated area of study and all its inhabitants. Factors such as water, air, mammals, entomology, geography, botany, meteorology, microbiology, society and culture are all included. Any other variables in and around the physical space you are studying all constitute an environment.
The Houghton Forestry Sciences Laboratory states that an ecosystem encompasses the interactions among all the factors that make up an environment, including people. For example, when studying an ecosystem children lean how seasons, animals, plants, land formation and water affect all the other inhabitants, both human and nonhuman, of a specific location. These factors -- working together or against one another -- are an ecosystem.
The environment constitutes the whole of a designated area or location, be that a forest, city, work space or neighborhood, and an ecosystem is a narrower focus on a specific aspect of the environment.
Create or locate lesson plans that involve getting the students outside the classroom, making and noting observations and taking action.
For example, the Starting Point's Lifestyle Project focuses on students gaining a basic understanding of how their daily habits affect the environment. First, they discuss what the goals are for the project and what they can expect to do over a three-week period. Next, they choose a topic to study: eating, transportation, heat, water and electricity, or garbage. This is followed by in-house research to get basic information on their topic. Finally, they begin their project by monitoring and noting their daily habits in regard to their chosen topic. Once complete, they are expected, through the assistance of the instructor, to modify their habits over the three-week study. In the end, the students produce a research paper.
Take your students outside. The Urban Ecology Center's educational philosophy is the best context to learn about the environment and ecology, which is the science of how organisms relate to other organisms and their surroundings. Go outside and use the students' environment (or the environment surrounding the facility where the lesson is being taught) so students can see and better understand what they researched through direct observations. Look for specific ecosystems contained in the general environment. Creating this physical connection between the environment, ecosystem and lesson strongly affects children's retention of the information being taught.