Local Habitat Assessment

Human Impacts—Local Habitat Assessment

Summary: Students explore their schoolyard or other local site to determine how human activity may have impacts on animal habitats, animal populations, and/or plant populations.

Concepts to teach: Habitat, adaptation, scientific inquiry, erosion, invasive species

Goals: Students will apply their knowledge about land use to their local outdoor site, and assess the real or potential impact of human land use on native species.

Standards:
S3.2L.1, S3.3S.1, S3.3S.2
S4.2L.1, S4.3S.1, S4.3S.2
S5.2L.1, S53S.1, S5.3S.2

Specific Objectives:

  1. Categorize components of a local land area based on the degree to which the land is in a natural or disturbed state.
  2. Determine the habitat requirements for a local species found on the site.
  3. Collect field data that relates species abundance to habitat type.

Activity Links and Resources:

  • Refer to studies of habitats in the Coastal Ecology and Ecosystems Module: Macrointertebrate Topic Guide
  • Habitat Inquiry—Students conduct a simple experiment that relates habitat type to species abundance in the school yard.
  • Use historic maps, photographs, and interviews with community elders and other experts to determine local changes that have occurred to the site over time.
  • Oregon Coast Quests
    • Yaquina Head Tale of Two Hills Quest—This self-guided place-based activity located in Newport tells the story of land use changes at Yaquina Head over 100 years. Featured human impacts include burning, livestock grazing, rock quarrying, golfing, residential development, and modern electrical towers.
    • Make a Quest or other interpretive guide that features the human impacts that students have identified in their local field site.

Assessment:

  • Use or develop formative assessment probes to gauge student understanding about the water cycle. The following probes from Uncovering Student Ideas in Science, vol. 2 could be applied or modified (to obtain Uncovering Student Ideas in Science publications or access sample chapters, visit the NSTA website):
    • Habitat Change—explores student understanding of how animal populations are affected when habitats are changed.
  • Probe: Rain on the Parking Lot—the purpose of this OCEP probe is to elicit students’ ideas about how rainwater interacts with impervious surfaces.
  • Select an organism living in the study site and identify its habitat requirements.
/by

Local Habitat Assessment

Human Impacts—Local Habitat Assessment

Summary: Students explore their schoolyard or other local site to determine how human activity may have impacts on animal habitats, animal populations, and/or plant populations.

Concepts to teach: Habitat, adaptation, scientific inquiry, erosion, invasive species

Goals: Students will apply their knowledge about land use to their local outdoor site, and assess the real or potential impact of human land use on native species.

Standards:
S6.3S1, S6.3S2
S7.3S1, S7.3S2
S8.3S1, S8.3S2

Specific Objectives:

  1. Categorize components of a local land area based on the degree to which the land is in a natural or disturbed state.
  2. Determine the habitat requirements for a local species found on the site.
  3. Collect field data that relates species abundance to habitat type.

Activity Links and Resources:

  • Refer to studies of habitats in the Coastal Ecology and Ecosystems Module: Macrointertebrate Topic Guide
  • Habitat Inquiry—Students conduct a simple experiment that relates habitat type to species abundance in the school yard.
  • Use historic maps, photographs, and interviews with community elders and other experts to determine local changes that have occurred to the site over time.
  • Oregon Coast Quests
    • Yaquina Head Tale of Two Hills Quest—This self-guided place-based activity located in Newport tells the story of land use changes at Yaquina Head over 100 years. Featured human impacts include burning, livestock grazing, rock quarrying, golfing, residential development, and modern electrical towers.
    • Make a Quest or other interpretive guide that features the human impacts that students have identified in their local field site.

Assessment:

  • Use or develop formative assessment probes to gauge student understanding about the water cycle. The following probes from Uncovering Student Ideas in Science, vol. 2 could be applied or modified (to obtain Uncovering Student Ideas in Science publications or access sample chapters, visit the NSTA website):
    • Habitat Change—explores student understanding of how animal populations are affected when habitats are changed.
  • Probe: Rain on the Parking Lot—the purpose of this OCEP probe is to elicit students’ ideas about how rainwater interacts with impervious surfaces.
  • Select an organism living in the study site and identify its habitat requirements.
/by

Macroinvertebrates

Coastal Habitats & Species—Macroinvertebrates

Summary: Students watch a student-produced animated video about macroinvertebrates and stream health.

Concepts to teach: Aquatic habitats and species natural history

Goals: Students explain the importance of benthic macroinvertebrates and how their presence or absence can indicate stream health.

Standards:
3.2L.1, 4.2L.1, 5.2L.1

Specific Objectives:

  1. Define the term benthic macroinvertebrate and identify common characteristics and examples.
  2. Describe the role of macroinvertebrates in stream ecosystems.
  3. Explain how macroinvertebrates can be an indicator for stream health.

Activity Links and Resources:

  • StreamWebs—This student stewardship network from OSU Extension provides open-source, web-based tools for watershed data management, analysis, and networking for teachers and students. Includes a data sheet for assessing stream health through macroinvertebrate sampling.
  • The Ponds and Wetlands Exploration lesson plan from the Oregon 4H Center outlines outdoor aquatic sampling and is based on the Project WET “Water Canaries” lesson
    • Visit the Oregon 4H Center for a field trip
    • Apply the lesson plan to a pond and wetland near your school
  • The 550-page Stream Scene curriculum is available in .pdf format on the ODFW website, and covers a variety of watershed topics. The chapter Aquatic Organisms contains two macroinvertebrate lessons:
    • Build a Bug, p. 319—“Students work in small teams to build an aquatic insect model out of simple materials.”
    • Water Wigglers, p. 335—“Students collect material from microhabitats within a determined reach of stream. Invertebrates are taken from these samples and sorted into feeding groups. A count is kept of each feeding group on the data sheet and the percentage of each group/habitat is calculated.”

Assessment:

/by

Macroinvertebrates

Coastal Habitats & Species—Macroinvertebrates

Summary: Students will examine different aquatic habitats, collect macroinvertebrates from each and use an index to determine water quality based on the relative presence and absence of tolerant and intolerant species of macroinvertebrates found in each sample.

Concepts to teach: Aquatic habitats and species, biomonitoring

Goals: Students will understand how macroinvertebrates can be indicators of environmental and habitat quality.

Standards:
6.2L.2, 6.3S.1, 7.2E.1, 7.2E.3, 7.3S.1, 7.3S.2, 8.3S.1

Specific Objectives:

  1. Identify common macroinvertebrates
  2. Explain the meaning of tolerant and intolerant species
  3. Understand the role of an index as a tool for generating a single number for comparison of diverse entities.
  4. Students use collected data to assess the health of aquatic environments

Activity Links and Resources:

  • Macroinvertebrates Summary adapted from Florida Department of Conservation
  • The 550-page Stream Scene curriculum is available in .pdf format on the ODFW website, and covers a variety of watershed topics. The chapter Aquatic Organisms contains two macroinvertebrate lessons:
    • Build a Bug, p. 319—“Students work in small teams to build an aquatic insect model out of simple materials.”
    • Water Wigglers, p. 335—“Students collect material from microhabitats within a determined reach of stream. Invertebrates are taken from these samples and sorted into feeding groups. A count is kept of each feeding group on the data sheet and the percentage of each group/habitat is calculated.”
  • StreamWebs—This student stewardship network from OSU Extension provides open-source, web-based tools for watershed data management, analysis, and networking for teachers and students. Includes a data sheet for assessing stream health through macroinvertebrate sampling.
    • Sample macroinvertebrates from one or more streams or ponds, and calculate Water Quality Ratings
    • Post results on SteamWebs and seek out similar data collected by others
    • Compare Water Quality Ratings for sites separated by geography or time
  • Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Dichotomous Key (from Georgia)

Assessment:

  • Use collected data to answer the following questions:
    • Based upon your data, what is the relative health of the water body you studied? Please support your answer.
    • What advantages and disadvantages would looking at macroinvertebrate populations have over a direct examination of physical and chemical parameters of water quality?
/by

Macroinvertebrates

Coastal Habitats & Species—Macroinvertebrates

Summary: Students will examine different aquatic habitats, collect macroinvertebrates from each and use an index to determine water quality based on the relative presence and absence of tolerant and intolerant species of macroinvertebrates found in each sample.

Concepts to teach: Aquatic habitats and species, biomonitoring

Goals: Students will understand how macroinvertebrates can be indicators of environmental and habitat quality.

Standards:
H.2L.2, H.3S.1, H.3S.2, H.3S.3

Specific Objectives:

  1. Identify common macroinvertebrates
  2. Explain the meaning of tolerant and intolerant species
  3. Understand the role of an index as a tool for generating a single number for comparison of diverse entities.
  4. Students use collected data to assess the health of aquatic environments.

Activity Links and Resources:

  • The 550-page Stream Scene curriculum is available in .pdf format on the ODFW website, and covers a variety of watershed topics.
    • The chapter Aquatic Organisms contains lessons pertinent to macroinvertebrates, including:
      • Water Wigglers, p. 335—“Students collect material from microhabitats within a determined reach of stream. Invertebrates are taken from these samples and sorted into feeding groups. A count is kept of each feeding group on the data sheet and the percentage of each group/habitat is calculated.”
    • In the chapter Field Investigations, find sampling protocols in Macroinvertebrate Survey Team p. 471
  • StreamWebs—This student stewardship network from OSU Extension provides open-source, web-based tools for watershed data management, analysis, and networking for teachers and students. Includes a data sheet for assessing stream health through macroinvertebrate sampling.
    • Sample macroinvertebrates from one or more streams or ponds, and calculate Water Quality Ratings
    • Post results on SteamWebs and seek out similar data collected by others
    • Compare Water Quality Ratings for sites separated by geography or time
  • Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Dichotomous Key (from Georgia)

Assessment:

  • Use collected data to answer the following questions:
    • Based upon your data, what is the relative health of the water body you studied? Use evidence to support your answer.
    • What advantages and disadvantages does looking at macroinvertebrate populations have over a direct examination of physical and chemical parameters of water quality?
/by

Making the Connection

Coastal Ecology—Making the Connection

Summary: Students explore food chains and food webs to discover interconnecting relationships among organisms in an ecosystem.

Concepts to teach: Food webs, different ecosystems

Goals: Students will learn about ecological relationships by constructing a simple food chain or food web.

Standards:
4.2L.1, 5.2L.1

Specific Objectives:

  1. Describe the difference between various roles in the food chain.
  2. Display the connections between various creatures in the food chain.
  3. Demonstrate the effects of outside influences on food chains and ecosystems.

Activity Links and Resources:

  • Making the Connection adapted from Michigan Sea Grant‘s Project Flow.
  • Food Chain descriptions and games
    • Who’s Hungry? – Students use body movement and pantomime to simulate the feeding motions of freshwater organisms and demonstrate the interconnectedness of a food web.
    • Food Chain Quiz—This is a good review of concepts in a fun format from the BBC.
    • Food Chain Game—An interactive animated drag and drop game from sheppardsoftware.com
    • Food Web Interactive from eduweb.com—Describes components of pond food chain and webs, and finishes with an experiment to see what happens changes are made to complex food webs.

Assessment:

  • Students look at multiple food chains or webs from different ecological systems and talk about the relationships depicted.
/by

Making the Connection

Coastal Ecology—Making the Connection

Summary: Students explore food chains and food webs to discover interconnecting relationships among organisms in an ecosystem.

Concepts to teach: Food webs, different ecosystems

Goals: Students will learn about ecological relationships by constructing a simple food chain or food web.

Standards:
6.2L.2,7.2L.2

Specific Objectives:

  1. Describe the difference between various roles in the food chain.
  2. Display the connections between various creatures in the food chain.
  3. Demonstrate the effects of outside influences on food chains and ecosystems.

Activity Links and Resources:

  • Making the Connection adapted from Michigan Sea Grant‘s Project FLOW
  • The 550-page Stream Scene curriculum is available in .pdf format on the ODFW website, and covers a variety of watershed topics.
    • The chapter Aquatic Organisms begins with background information about healthy diversified stream ecosystems and food chains, p. 307
  • Food Chain descriptions and games
    • Food Chain Quiz—This is a good review of concepts in a fun format from the BBC.
    • Food Chain Game—An interactive animated drag and drop game from sheppardsoftware.com
    • Food Web Interactive from eduweb.com—Describes components of pond food chain and webs, and finishes with an experiment to see what happens changes are made to complex food webs.

Assessment:

  • Students look at multiple food chains or webs from different ecological systems and talk about the relationships depicted.
/by

Mapping the Connection

Place—Mapping the Connection

Summary: This focus area begins with the recognition that the ability to read and understand maps is essential to place-based learning, and can help students construct ideas about the relationship between where they live and the ocean. Students practice reading different kinds of maps, and they use maps to find out how their school is physically connected to the ocean through natural and human-made geographic features.

Concepts to teach: What maps show, map symbols, scale, cardinal directions, watersheds

Goals: Students locate their position within a watershed and determine how they are physically connected to the ocean. They understand the spatial concepts of location, distance, scale, movement and region, and use maps and other tools to acquire, process and report information from a spatial perspective.

Standards:
SS.03.GE.01, SS 03.GE.02, SS 03.GE.03, SS 03 GE.04
SS.05.GE.01, SS 05.GE.02

Specific Objectives:

  1. Use maps to find distant and local landmarks.
  2. Define a watershed and identify the watershed in which the school belongs.
  3. Trace both a land and water connection between school and the ocean.

Activity Links and Resources:

  • Introduction to Maps—In this classroom activity from NESTA, students learn or review basic map elements and types of maps, and identify how different maps are useful for different purposes.
  • Mapping the Classroom—Page 26 from Princeton University’s A Teacher’s Guide to the Universe
    curriculum. Students explore the concept of varying map scales by constructing a scale model of the classroom. If desired, this activity can easily be modified to apply to a small outdoor area rather than a classroom space.
  • Google Earth hunt—Instructor creates a scavenger hunt of relevant locations that can be found on Google Earth. Students virtually “fly” from site to site collecting place-based information.
    • Extension: Have students create their own hunts and then test each others’ creations.
  • For maps of your watershed, contact your local watershed organization. Search OWEB for watershed councils in Oregon.
  • Real-time streamflow data is available on the USGS WaterWatch website
  • Online source for visualizing different kinds of Oregon maps

Assessment:

  • Use or develop formative assessment probes to gauge student understanding about the water cycle. The following probes from Uncovering Student Ideas in Science, vol. 4 could be applied or modified (to obtain Uncovering Student Ideas in Science publications or access sample chapters, visit the NSTA website):
    • Where Would it Fall?—gets students to think about how much of the planet is covered by the ocean.
  • Probe: Connections to the Ocean—explores student ideas about connections between Oregon communities and the ocean.
  • Have students use a map and written instructions to describe a driving route from school to the ocean.
  • Have students use a map and written instructions to describe a water route that connects a nearby stream to the ocean.
/by

Mapping the Connection

Place—Mapping the Connection

Summary: This focus area begins with the recognition that the ability to read and understand maps is essential to place-based learning, and can help students construct ideas about the relationship between where they live and the ocean. Students practice reading different kinds of maps, and they use maps to find out how their school is physically connected to the ocean through natural and human-made geographic features.

Concepts to teach: What maps show, map symbols, scale, cardinal directions, watersheds

Goals: Students locate their position within a watershed and determine how they are physically connected to the ocean. They understand the spatial concepts of location, distance, scale, movement and region, and use maps and other tools to acquire, process and report information from a spatial perspective.

Standards:
SS.08.GE.01, SS.08.GE.02

Specific Objectives:

  1. Use maps to find distant and local landmarks.
  2. Define a watershed and identify the watershed in which the school belongs.
  3. Trace both a land and water connection between school and the ocean.

Activity Links and Resources:

  • Introduction to Maps—In this classroom activity from NESTA, students learn or review basic map elements and types of maps, and identify how different maps are useful for different purposes.
  • Mapping the Classroom—Page 26 from Princeton University’s A Teacher’s Guide to the Universe
    curriculum. Students explore the concept of varying map scales by constructing a scale model of the classroom. If desired, this activity can easily be modified to apply to a small outdoor area rather than a classroom space.
  • Google Earth hunt—Instructor creates a scavenger hunt of relevant locations that can be found on Google Earth. Students virtually “fly” from site to site collecting place-based information.
    • Extension: Have students create their own hunts and then test each others’ creations.
  • For maps of your watershed, contact your local watershed organization. Search OWEB for watershed councils in Oregon.
  • Real-time streamflow data is available on the USGS WaterWatch website
  • Online source for visualizing different kinds of Oregon maps

Assessment:

  • Use or develop formative assessment probes to gauge student understanding about the water cycle. The following probes from Uncovering Student Ideas in Science, vol. 4 could be applied or modified (to obtain Uncovering Student Ideas in Science publications or access sample chapters, visit the NSTA website):
    • Where Would it Fall?—gets students to think about how much of the planet is covered by the ocean.
  • Probe: Connections to the Ocean—explores student ideas about connections between Oregon communities and the ocean.
  • Have students use a map and written instructions to describe a driving route from school to the ocean.
  • Have students use a map and written instructions to describe a water route that connects a nearby stream to the ocean.
/by

Mapping the Connection

Place—Mapping the Connection

Summary: This focus area begins with the recognition that the ability to read and understand maps is essential to place-based learning, and can help students construct ideas about the relationship between where they live and the ocean. Students practice reading different kinds of maps, and they use maps to find out how their school is physically connected to the ocean through natural and human-made geographic features.

Concepts to teach: What maps show, map symbols, scale, cardinal directions, watersheds

Goals: Students locate their position within a watershed and determine how they are physically connected to the ocean. They understand the spatial concepts of location, distance, scale, movement and region, and use maps and other tools to acquire, process and report information from a spatial perspective.

Standards:
SS.HS.GE.01, SS.HS.GE.02

Specific Objectives:

  1. Use maps to find distant and local landmarks.
  2. Define a watershed and identify the watershed in which the school belongs.
  3. Trace both a land and water connection between school and the ocean.

Activity Links and Resources:

  • Exploring Maps—Four lessons from USGS arranged around themes: location, navigation, information and exploration
  • Google Earth hunt—Instructor creates a scavenger hunt of relevant locations that can be found on Google Earth. Students virtually “fly” from site to site collecting place-based information.
    • Extension: Have students create their own hunts and then test each others’ creations.
  • For maps of your watershed, contact your local watershed organization. Search OWEB for watershed councils in Oregon.
  • Real-time streamflow data is available on the USGS WaterWatch website
  • Online source for visualizing different kinds of Oregon maps

Assessment:

  • Use or develop formative assessment probes to gauge student understanding about the water cycle. The following probes from Uncovering Student Ideas in Science, vol. 4 could be applied or modified (to obtain Uncovering Student Ideas in Science publications or access sample chapters, visit the NSTA website):
    • Where Would it Fall?—gets students to think about how much of the planet is covered by the ocean.
  • Probe: Connections to the Ocean—explores student ideas about connections between Oregon communities and the ocean.
  • Have students use a map and written instructions to describe a driving route from school to the ocean.
  • Have students use a map and written instructions to describe a water route that connects a nearby stream to the ocean.
/by