Students will learn about primary and secondary succession through an on-line interactivesuccession game, as well as conduct a historical analysis of the Great Thumb Fire of 1881.

LESSON DESCRIPTIONStudents will explore the benefits of ecosystems by engaging in a simulation utilizing ecosystemservices.

LESSON DESCRIPTIONStudents will study existing examples of habitat restoration efforts related to promoting biodiversityin order to write their own management plan for an endangered species/habitat.

Objective
SWBAT explain how decomposers impact our everyday lives, beyond being a part of natural ecosystems.

Big Idea
In this lesson, students will research and investigate yeast. As a class, we will make bread and students will observe how the decomposition process aids the bread-rising process.

What do Prairie Chickens Need in Order to Survive Today's Prairie?

This middle school unit covering ecosystems, animal behavior and symbiosis was developed through the Storyline approach. Middle school students will be figuring out why prairie chickens have a very unique dance and understand the role cows play to help ensure the dance takes place. Using this approach, students engage in science concepts to help ensure the survival of the prairie chicken.

Students will learn how to use Flipgrid to record videos. Students will watch Crash Course Kids videos related to the transfer of matter and energy within an ecosystem and use that information (as well as information from outside sources, if desired) to create a puppet show. They will use Flipgrid to record their puppet shows and be able to watch each other’s shows.

For the last century, precepts of scientific management and administrative rationality have concentrated power in the hands of technical specialists, which in recent decades has contributed to widespread disenfranchisement and discontent among stakeholders in natural resources cases. In this seminar we examine the limitations of scientific management as a model both for governance and for gathering and using information, and describe alternative methods for informing and organizing decision-making processes. We feature cases involving large carnivores in the West (mountain lions and grizzly bears), Northeast coastal fisheries, and adaptive management of the Colorado River. There will be nightly readings and a short written assignment.

This course analyzes cooperative processes that shape the natural environment, now and in the geologic past. It emphasizes the development of theoretical models that relate the physical and biological worlds, the comparison of theory to observational data, and associated mathematical methods.

Understanding Biodiversity presents an overview of biodiversity, its importance and relevance to humans, all living things, and the Earth. It includes species pages and a template to engage and involve students in real-life data collection.

11.941 and 11.942 make up a one-year seminar. The goal of this seminar is to explore the role of science and scientists in ecosystems and natural resources management focusing on joint fact finding as a new approach to environmental policy-making. Increasingly scientists and science organizations are confronting a conundrum: Why is science often ignored in important societal decisions even as the call for decisions based on sound science escalates? One reason is that decision-making is often driven by a variety of nonscientific, adversarial, and stakeholder dynamics. Thus, even though science helps inform choices, it is only one of many values and interests considered by each stakeholder. In response to this emerging challenge, scientists, and science agencies such as the U.S. Geological Survey, are embarking upon research that explores the problems of incorporating science into value-laden societal decisions. This research includes designing experiments that will assess the appropriateness of using the new and emerging approach of Joint Fact Finding to address some of the Nation's most contentious environmental conflicts. In the first few sessions we will examine the problems of using science in environmental disputes. In following sessions, students will analyze and discuss cases that involved or that should have involved Joint Fact Finding of various kinds.

This course makes up the second half of a year-long seminar on Joint Fact Finding in Science-Intensive Disputes. In 11.941, the first half of the seminar, students analyzed and discussed cases that involved or that should have involved Joint Fact Finding of various kinds. In this portion, students concentrate on gathering information to assist in resolving the Cape Wind project, the dispute concerning the placement of wind farms in waters adjacent to Nantucket. Students will lay the groundwork for a collaborative project that includes Federal and State agencies, academic institutions and non-profits.

In this interactive activity adapted from the Exploratorium, explore how our cells harvest energy from food.