Step outside and discover the diversity of insect life in your neighborhood. Insects are the world’s most diverse group of living things, with over 950,000 identified species and counting. You might think that you’d need to travel to the Amazon to study insects, but they can be found practically everywhere—including right where you happen to be.

Objective
SWBAT explain why maintaining biodiversity is important to the health of an ecosystem and develop suggestions for maintaining biodiversity.

Big Idea
Students work to recognize that changes to part of an ecosystem can have positive or negative impacts on the entire ecosystem.

Using this lesson plan students will be more aware of how plants and animals adapt to wildland fire. They will: Discuss the adaptive strategies of plants and animals to survive fire. Observe plants and animals in your local area. Design a plant or animal that is adapted for fire survival.

Objective
SWBAT generate a list of methods used to maintain biodiversity and incorporate the method they feel is best into their final project.

Big Idea
Students gather information on the importance of biodiversity and what we can do to maintain it for the future.

Objective
SWBAT create a list of characteristics and interesting facts about spiders.

Big Idea
Students critically read scientific texts adapted for classroom use to determine the central ideas and/or obtain scientific information to gather evidence about the natural world.

This course examines the interconnections of international politics and climate change. Beginning with an analysis of the strategic and environmental legacies of the 20th Century, it explores the politicization of the natural environment, the role of science in this process, and the gradual shifts in political concerns to incorporate "nature". Two general thrusts of climate-politics connections are pursued, namely those related to (a) conflict - focusing on threats to security due to environmental dislocations and (b) cooperation - focusing on the politics of international treaties that have contributed to emergent processes for global accord in response to evidence of climate change. The course concludes by addressing the question of: "What Next?

Objective
SWBAT
1. Construct an argument supported by empirical evidence that changes to physical or biological components of an ecosystem affect populations.
2. Evaluate competing design solutions for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Big Idea
Students investigate the idea that small changes in one part of a system might cause large changes in another.

LESSON DESCRIPTIONStudents will research potential careers of stakeholders involved in making land use decisions then engage in a role-playing scenario about a proposed dam removal in their community.

In this group of activities students will investigate their schoolyard or other nearby space in orderto identify what is around them and arrive at the definition of an ecosystem. Students will take a walk or go to a specific location to observe the types of constructed and natural features that are there. Students will record their observations and then begin to categorize their findings into living and non- living things. Once students have identified the living things, they will discuss what living things need to survive. Students will learn new terms, biotic and abiotic, and review what a habitat is as they discuss the components of an ecosystem. Students will also be introduced to the term biodiversity.

In this group of activities, students will think more deeply about the ways in which organismsinteract within communities in their ecosystems. Students will learn about different types of relationships including commensalism, mutualism, and parasitism and will role play predator/prey relationships through an interactive game. Students will also discover how energy movesthrough ecosystems via food chains and food webs and look at energy pyramids.

In this group of activities, students will investigate how nutrients and water move through ecosystems in cycles. Students will begin by investigating how carbon cycles through organisms as part of photosynthesis and cellular respiration and then through food chains. Students will discuss what happens when living things do not decompose under normal conditions and become fossilfuels. Students will then review the water cycle and discover that water connects everything inecosystems. Students will explore stories of the water cycle as told by molecules of water anddiscuss water’s importance to all living things.

Students will learn about Michigan’s four ecological regions, how these unique regions come together to help support Michigan’s environment, and the important role they play in Michigan’s economy, as well as globally. Students will become “CSI agents” investigating and collecting information that supports why Michigan‘s environment is unique. Students will apply what they have discovered by creating an infographic that advertises the importance of their region.

There are many different types of ecosystems in the state of Michigan. Many of these ecosystemshave changed over time due to fires, storms, or animals. No animal has had a bigger impact onMichigan’s ecosystems than humans. Humans have transformed ecosystems all across the state.These ecosystems have been transformed in many different ways, like draining wetlands, cuttingdown forest for farm fields, and cities getting larger and expanding outward. Many ecosystems andorganisms are resilient and have adapted to the changes; others unfortunately have not.

LESSON DESCRIPTIONStudents will use problem-based learning to engineer a solution to the animal car collision problem.

Michigan has a variety of different ecosystems ranging from large forests all the way to shallow creeks, streams, and wetlands. Humans use these ecosystems in a variety of ways (good or bad). Students will investigate both the unique terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems found throughout Michigan through researching and developing detailed maps.

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 analyze existing data to determine potential cause/effect of invasive species in population dynamics. Students will collect their own data in a field study to demonstrate the carrying capacity (competition and availability of resources) of an ecosystem.

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 create a Venn diagram that compares spiders and insects.

Big Idea
Students critically read scientific texts adapted for classroom use to determine the central ideas and/or obtain scientific information to gather evidence about the natural world.