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Ecological Succession Timeline

Run the Ecological Succession Timeline MicroSim Fullscreen
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About This MicroSim

This simulation juxtaposes the five major stages of primary and secondary succession. Students can scrub through the shared timeline, compare soil depth changes, and examine species roles for every stage. The landscape illustration updates in real time to reflect vegetation structure, soil development, and stage duration differences.

How to Use

  1. Choose Primary or Secondary Succession (or enable Compare modes) to set the context.
  2. Drag the Timeline Scrubber, pick a stage from the dropdown, or press Start Simulation to auto-play.
  3. Observe how the diagram, soil-depth bar, and species list update. Hover plant/animal icons for tooltips.
  4. Switch on/off the display toggles to emphasize time labels, soil depth, or species icons during discussion.

Iframe Embed Code

You can add this MicroSim to any web page by adding this to your HTML:

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<iframe src="https://dmccreary.github.io/biology/sims/ecological-succession/main.html"
        height="830px"
        width="100%"
        scrolling="no"></iframe>

Lesson Plan

Grade Level

9-12 (Biology/Ecology)

Duration

10-15 minutes

Prerequisites

  • Prior knowledge of producers, consumers, and decomposers
  • Familiarity with the terms primary vs secondary succession

Activities

  1. Exploration (5 min): Students toggle between primary and secondary modes to see how the same stage number looks different in timing and soil depth.
  2. Guided Practice (5 min): Teacher prompts learners to predict the next stage, then confirm by jumping via the dropdown and reading the species roles.
  3. Assessment (5 min): Learners enable Compare mode and explain why secondary succession catches up faster despite sharing later-stage species.

Assessment

  • Identify two distinguishing features between primary and secondary succession at the same time point.
  • Explain how a highlighted species contributes to soil building or community change.
  • Correctly order the stages shown on the timeline from earliest to latest for each mode.

References

  1. Miller, G. T. & Spoolman, S. (2022). Environmental Science: Sustaining Your World (AP Edition). Cengage.
  2. U.S. National Park Service. “Ecological Succession.” https://www.nps.gov/subjects/fire/ecological-succession.htm