Apologia Biology: Ecology

I know, I know!  When are we finishing Ecology. I meant it when I said I do projects, PBL, and integrated loads of activities.  Today, my class spent three hours on an activity called 'Swiss Cheese', an activity on habitat fragmentation.  'Swiss Cheese'was originally developed by the Smithsonian (CRC) as part of a forestry biodiversity program. I've used material from this program with my AP Environmental Science classes; it was designed for all levels of high school students.  The program has large maps and uses bingo chips to represent twelve animals species located in Olympic National Park.  The map is based on real data from the park.  The kids start spread 300 bingo chips of the twelve animal species over the map.  Then they remove species located in regions timbered in 1950 and 1990.  After the kids do the counts and remove impacted species, they calculate Shannon biodiversity indexes, create food webs, and write a brief report using the 'claim, evidence, reasoning' approach.

What might substitute?  I used to have my AP kids calculate and compare biodiversity indexes for the school parking lot.  They can begin with a hypothesis.  Which parking lot is more diverse: the student lot or the teacher lot?  Are they equally diverse?  The kids calculate a diversity index for both and compare the two.  Try 'Quantifying Biodiversity' for more practice.  This habitat simulation has similar objectives to 'Swiss Cheese'.  I like this activity, Sustainable Forestry, which takes more of an economic perspective.

Another habitat resource is 'Finding Common Ground' from the Smithsonian.  The original biodiversity program from the Smithsonian included remote sensing and forest biodiversity. I've used these lessons, such as the field activities described here in class.  (Although I prefer the filed methods from GLOBE.  Next class, the kids are reviewing material from the modules.  Really!