Burrowing owls
http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/lessons.cfm?DocID=84
A lesson plan for Grades 9–12 Earth/Environmental Science and Advanced Placement Earth and Environmental Science
About this resource
- Appropriate grades
- 9–12
- Subjects
- science (environmental science), thinking skills (higher order thinking, information literacy, research skills)
- Provider
- American Association for the Advancement of Science
Legal
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In this lesson, students develop an understanding of how humans can affect or change ecosystems for other species. After an initial discussion activity that challenges students to analyze and make inferences about a picture of a Burrowing Owl, students research the creature using online resources. This lesson offers a couple options for the research portion of the activity, including individual and group work. Students create a report and the whole class discusses their findings. Then, Using local media and conservation resources, students find examples of humans impacting a regional ecosystem. Making a connection in their community will help students realize the future is in their hands. This lesson concludes with a final discussion about how development is impacting a local ecosystem. Science NetLinks provides links to web resources, detailed directions for completing the activity, and discussion questions. This lesson also contains links to similar lesson plans and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
North Carolina Curriculum Alignment
Science (2005)
Grades 9–12 — Advanced Placement Earth and Environmental Science
- Goal 2: The learner will build an understanding of the interdependence of Earth's systems.
- Objective 2.05: Investigate the biosphere.
- Organisms: adaptations to their environment.
- Populations and communities: exponential growth and carrying capacity.
- Ecosystems and change: biomass, energy transfer, succession.
- Evolution of life: natural selection, extinction.
- Biomes: global distribution.
- Objective 2.05: Investigate the biosphere.
Grades 9–12 — Earth/Environmental Science
- Goal 1: The learner will develop abilities necessary to do and understand scientific inquiry in the earth and environmental sciences.
- Objective 1.01: Identify questions and problems in the earth and environmental sciences that can be answered through scientific investigations.
- Objective 1.06: Identify and evaluate a range of possible solutions to earth and environmental issues at the local, national, and global level including considerations of:
- Interdependent human and natural systems.
- Diverse perspectives.
- Short and long range impacts.
- Economic development, environmental quality and sustainability.
- Opportunities for and consequences of personal decisions.
- Risks and benefits of technological advances.
