Classroom Ecology

If an ecosystem is to be sustainable, it must capture, transform, store, and recycle

energy1, as it flows from sources through to sinks. Furthermore, sustainable
ecosystems develop energy flows that feedback some of the stored energy into the
transformations that produced them upstream. Through this energy feedback loop,
stored energy is reused to improve the transformation of available energy into storage
downstream.2 From this ecological perspective, an ecosystem can be viewed as a
‘place’ into and out of which energy flows3:
• Some of the energy flowing through an ecosystem is transformed into more
organised forms: energy is captured and stored in the organisation of materials
into products, thus concentrating energy4.
• Some of the energy flowing through an ecosystem is dispersed and rendered
unavailable to the system: energy is lost down the sink by the diverting of energy
flows into waste, thus dissipating energy5.

Figure 1: Energy Systems Diagram of Energy Consumer.

Detailed Symbols Summary Symbol

Feedback Store
Source

Capture

Consumer
Source Transformation
Capture Production

Waste
Waste

Sink
Sink

An energy systems diagram of energy flows from source to sink with a

transformation that produces a store with an energy feedback loop back to the
transformation.

1
Energy is the Effort applied in achieving a unit Deed (W= Fx, U= Vq)
2
This is known as the ‘maximum power principle’ of self-organising systems (Odum, 1994).
3
i.e., an open system
4
Producing more ‘neg-entropy’: distinguished from the background.
5
Producing more ‘entropy’: characterised by more homogenous heterogeneity.
 More organised forms of energy (stores) degrade more slowly because energy
flows less directly from sources through to sinks. Transformations concentrate energy
by organising materials into more complex forms (stores) faster than these complex
forms can degrade into simpler forms (sinks). They therefore have more energy
available to their own maintenance when energy flows through the system are low.
When these more organised forms of energy (stores) include feedback pathways that
improve the transformations that produce them, more of the energy flowing through
the system is available to be stored, and therefore, energy is temporarily saved from
the sink.
• Organised materials can store a higher ‘energy quality’ than disorganised
materials: the quantity of energy of a given form needed to develop an increase
in the quantity of energy stored in organised materials is higher than the quantity
of energy of that same form needed to develop an increase in the quantity of
energy stored in disorganised materials.
• Organised materials can feedback a higher ‘energy quality’ than disorganised
materials: the quantity of energy stored in disorganised materials needed to
develop an increase in the quantity of energy of a given form, is higher than the
quantity of energy stored in organised materials needed to develop an increase in
the quantity of energy of that same form.