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Abstract
This lesson will engage students in an inquiry-based project. The
project will be the summative assessment for this unit. The students
will identify a potential local environmental problem that involves
soil and/or water, form a hypothesis, collect data, and determine
the impact on the interrelated organisms. The main goal of this
project is to assess student understanding of the interconnectedness
of both living and non-living elements and to assess their
understanding of how humans impact their environment.
Lesson fundamental understandings:
Essential
Questions: Understandings: Human decisions impact our
backyard ecosystem both postively and negatively. How human impact
may possibly affect their ecosystem that they are investigatin and
how these impacts affect the interrelationships of the ecosystem the
students are investigating.
Questions: What are some impacts
humans have on the environment? Specifically, how do these human
impacts affect the interrelationships of their investigative
ecosystem?
Standards
National Standards Life Science:
Interdependence of organisms Human beings live within the world's
ecosystems. Increasingly, humans modify ecosystems as a result of
population growth, technology, and consumption. Human destruction of
habitats through direct harvesting, pollution, atmospheric changes,
and other factors is threatening. Current global stability, and if
not addressed, ecosystems will be irreversibly affected. Technology
Standards: Technology research tools Information Literacy Standards:
Information literacy Social Responsibility
State Standards Florida: (SC.G.2.4.6)
The student knows the ways in which humans today are placing their
environment support systems at risk. Nebraska: (12.4.4) Investigate
and describe how humans modify the ecosystem as a result of
population growth, technology, and consumption.
Lesson
Prerequisite Skills
Scientific method; lab write-up Abiotic/Biotic definitions Food
Web-interrelationships
Teacher
Information/Situations/Setting/Time Three 90 minute
blocks or six 45 minutes class periods
Materials: soil analysis
kit (Rapitest- under resources in Lesson 3); water pH kit, possibly
student generated materials.
Assessment
Grading of the student project/lab write-up. Have a rubric for
students to follow.
Student Activity/Tasks 1) The teacher
will place the students in a groups of three.
2) Each group will
identify a problem in the environment that they want to
investigate.
3) The students will have to research the background
of the community area they will investigate. They should have
knowledge of the history, landscape, etc.
4) They will form an
hypothesis of possibly what they will find in their area of
investigation.
5) The student groups will decide on a
experimental procedure in which to test their hypothesis.
6) The
student groups will perform their experiment.
7) Using a computer
spreadsheet, the students will construct a data table.
8) After
gathering and constructing their data table, the students will
research on the internet why they possibly have their results.
9)
They will make a lab write-up to share their findings. In the
conclusion, they need to address: A) positive/negative impactss
involved. B) impact connections for example, how organisms could
possibly be impacted by the introduction of different additives. C)
The students need to describe some of the interrelationships
affected by the different additives.
10) The student groups will
make a three to five minute presentation on their project findings.
The teacher will provide closure to the unit by class discussion.
Enrichment/Alternate Activity:
For step 10 of the lesson,the teacher may bring in a guest
speaker.
Cross-Curricular:
Technology
Requirements/Tools/Materials
Computers with a spreadsheet application.
Students generate
lab write-ups using a computer.
Acknowledgements:
Additional Resources
Main
URL:
Related Lessons
Related Resources
Copyright © 1997-2003
Career Connection to Teaching with Technology
USDOE Technology Innovation Challenge Grant
Marshall Ransom, Project Manager
All rights reserved.
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