Stage 1 Desired Results

Forest Fragmentation

Pacing: 5 Weeks

Stage 1 Desired Results

Established Goals:

ESS3-3 Create a computational simulation to illustrate the relationships among management of natural resources, the sustainability of human populations, and biodiversity

LS2-7 Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity

LS2-6 Evaluate the claims, evidence, and reasoning that the complex interactions in ecosystems maintain relatively consistent numbers and types of organisms in stable conditions, but changing conditions may result in a new ecosystem.

LS4-6 Create or revise a simulation to test a solution to mitigate adverse impacts of human activity on biodiversity

Transfer

Students will be able to independently use their learning to….

• Explain how land use development directly impacts local biodiversity and functionality of forest ecosystems

• Utilize publicly available geospatial and remote sensing data for assessing current and future forest fragmentation in their community

• Applying geospatial and remote sensing data for developing recommendations on mitigating impacts on the local community

Meaning

Understandings

Students will understand…

• Forest fragmentation is the leading cause of species and wetland degradation 

• Parceling forest into less contiguous pieces reduces ability to provide ecosystem services 

• Development patterns do not consider impacts on surrounding parcels or at ecological scale

• Forest fragmentation reduces a community’s resilience to changes in the environment

Essential Questions

Students will keep considering…

• Why are development patterns responsible for changing the landscape?

• How does the change taking place today differ from those occurring in the past?

• Why are fragmented forests less likely to provide adequate ecosystem services to a community?

• How is geospatial and remote sensing data utilized for assessing forest fragmentation at the community scale?

Acquisition

Students will know…

• Vocabulary on describing / assessing the degree of forest fragmentation

• Indicators used on measuring degree of fragmentation and impacts on ecosystem services

• Development patterns have a significant role in determining the severity of impacts  forest

• GIS is necessary for measuring impacts 

Students will be skilled at…

• Classifying forested land using remote sensing data and aerial photography

• Identifying the degree of forest fragmentation occurring over time within their community

• Differentiating between high / low impact development patterns on ecosystem services of forested lands

• Describing how unfragmented forests provide a community with resilience to a changing environment