IB Biology Ecology Pub Quiz

What it covers

IB Biology at SL, with HL cards when you switch the level: B4.1 Adaptation to environment, B4.2 Ecological niches, C4.1 Populations and communities, C4.2 Transfers of energy and matter, A4.2 Conservation of biodiversity and D4.3 Climate change.

The running order

nine rounds and a handout of riddles. Review rounds are drawn from these topics each time you open the quiz, so two classes never get the same paper, and every review round can be redrawn in a click.

1. Riddle me this review
   Course terms as riddles: "I have a head that loves water and two tails that hate it…" Teams write what it is.
2. Close-up fun
   A tiny zoomed-in patch. What's the full picture?
3. Fact or fiction fun
   Myths and true-but-weird facts. Teams write Fact or Fiction.
4. Think it through review
   Scenarios, odd ones out, true or false and why, puzzles: questions to reason through. Give teams a little longer.
5. Films in science-speak fun
   A film plot, described like a research abstract. Name the film.
6. Who am I? Scientists fun
   Three clues, hardest first. 3 points after clue 1, 2 after clue 2, 1 after clue 3.
7. Missing vowels: course terms review
   Your key terms with the vowels taken out.
8. Funny animal noises fun
   YouTube clips of animals making ridiculous noises. Screen off, listen, guess, then watch the reveal.
9. Closest wins fun
   Estimation questions. Nearest team wins the point. Doubles as the tiebreaker.

A taste of the questions

Think it through

Scenarios, odd ones out and true or false and why, from IB Biology.

1. Cheetahs are so alike genetically that skin grafted between unrelated cheetahs is not rejected. Which level of biodiversity is low, and why does it matter?
2. Marram grass on sand dunes rolls its leaves inwards, with the stomata on the inside. Why?
3. Clostridium botulinum can grow in a badly sealed can of food but not on food left open to the air. What kind of organism is it?
4. Why does yeast added to fresh nutrient broth grow exponentially at first?
5. True or false, and why? A peat bog that takes in more CO₂ each year than it gives out is a carbon source.
6. Why does melting Arctic sea ice speed up global warming?

Riddle me this

Course terms as riddles. Teams write what it is.

1. I'm the variety of life at every level: genes, species and ecosystems. What am I?
2. I'm the place where an organism lives: its address, not its job. What am I?
3. I'm not where you live but what you do there: what you eat, what eats you and what you can put up with. What am I?
4. I'm the most a habitat can support for the long run. Push past me and deaths outnumber births. What am I?
5. I make my own carbon compounds from simple inorganic stuff, using light or chemical energy. What am I?

Quickfire

Short recall from the same topics.

1. Place where an organism or species lives
2. Non-living influence such as temperature
3. Inherited trait suiting life in a habitat
4. Role of a species in its ecosystem
5. Cannot survive where oxygen is present
6. Respires with or without oxygen
7. Group of one species living in one area
8. All the populations sharing an area