What's New?
By Katie Larson, Alliance for the Great Lakes, klarson@greatlakes.org
To download a printable version of this lesson plan, click on the image
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By Katie Larson, Alliance for the Great Lakes, klarson@greatlakes.org
To download a printable version of this lesson plan, click on the image
We would greatly appreciate your feedback! Click here to complete a short survey telling us about your experience with this lesson plan.
Lesson Overview
Students play a game that demonstrates the abstract concept of introducing a new species into an ecosystem, and examine the impacts of invasive species on an ecosystem. Students will also look at maps and other resources to observe various pathways for how invasive species can enter a new ecosystem. In small groups, students study an invasive species selected from the set of Creature Cards, and the impacts of its introduction to the Great Lakes.
Teacher Background
Invasive species are non-native species that have arrived accidentally or have been brought intentionally from their native ecosystem to a new ecosystem and cause harm to the new ecosystem. Hundreds of examples of non-native species (also called exotic species) appearing in new ecosystems are known around the world. When a new species arrives in an ecosystem, the balance among native organisms may be altered, and competition is high until a new balance is achieved. Non-native species are not always invasive: sometimes the new species cannot survive in these new ecosystems; in other cases they cause no harm or may even be beneficial. However, if the new species survives and reproduces well, one or more native species populations can suffer, altering the ecosystem. A non-native species that causes harm to the environment, ecosystem, or people is known as an invasive species. Generally, invasive species can cause significant change to their newly adopted ecosystems.
According to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, about 1.4 trillion dollars a year is spent globally to control invasive species and to help repair the damage they cause. Within the Great Lakes region, commercial shipping has been responsible for over 60% of invasive species that have arrived since 1960. The Great Lakes states continue to seek solutions to preventing new invasive species from establishing themselves in the ecosystem. Many people have heard about zebra and quagga mussels in the Great Lakes, as well as the threat of Asian carp entering the Great Lakes. These are just a few examples of many nuisance plant and animal species that have moved or are poised to move between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins via the constructed Chicago Waterway System that has connected the two basins for over 100 years. Other non-native species introduced into the Great Lakes are: rusty crayfish, spiny water flea, common carp, Eurasian ruffe, sea lamprey, Eurasian water milfoil, rudd and New Zealand mudsnail. Other non-native species threatening to enter the Great Lakes are: the northern snakehead and the tench.
Suggested Student Prior Knowledge: Great Lakes creatures and food webs
Target Grade & Subject: Gr. 5-8, Science
Duration: one 50-minute class period
Instructional Setting: Classroom
Advance Preparation:
Learning Objectives:
At the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
Michigan Science Performance Expectation Addressed
3rd Grade:
3-LS4-3 Construct an argument with evidence that in a particular habitat some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all. [Clarification Statement: Examples of evidence could include needs and characteristics of the organisms and habitats involved. The organisms and their habitat make up a system in which the parts depend on each other.]
SEP: Science & Engineering Practices
Asking Questions and Defining Problems
Asking questions and defining problems in grades 6–8 builds from grades K–5 experiences and progresses to specifying relationships between variables and clarifying arguments and models.
DCI: Disciplinary Core Ideas
LS4.C: AdaptationFor any particular environment, some kinds of organisms survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.
CCC: Cross-Cutting Concepts
Cause and Effect
Cause and effect relationships are routinely identified and used to explain change.
Middle School:
MS-LS2-2 Construct an explanation that predicts patterns of interactions among organisms across multiple ecosystems. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on predicting consistent patterns of interactions in different ecosystems in terms of the relationships among and between organisms and abiotic components of ecosystems. Examples of types of interactions could include competitive, predatory, and mutually beneficial.]
DCI: Disciplinary Core Ideas
LS2.A: Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems
Similarly, predatory interactions may reduce the number of organisms or eliminate whole populations of organisms. Mutually beneficial interactions, in contrast, may become so interdependent that each organism requires the other for survival. Although the species involved in these competitive, predatory, and mutually beneficial interactions vary across ecosystems, the patterns of interactions of organisms with their environments, both living and nonliving, are shared.
LS2.C: Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning, and Resilience
CCC: Cross-Cutting Concepts
Patterns - Patterns can be used to identify cause and effect relationships.
SEP: Science & Engineering Practices https://ngss.nsta.org/PracticesFull.aspx
Materials & Quantities per class and per student group
Per class:
Per student:
Guiding Questions:
ENGAGE:
EXPLORE:
Supporting students during exploration: Questions that the teacher could ask to guide the exploration.
EXPLAIN:
ELABORATE:
Supporting students during elaboration: Questions that the teacher could ask to clarify student thinking.
EVALUATE:
Supporting students during evaluation: Questions the teacher could ask to tie students’ ideas to the big idea.
New Vocabulary
Invasive species: plant or animal that enters an ecosystem to which it is not native and competes with one or more native species for food, shelter and/or reproductive opportunities.
Exotic species: a species that is non-native to an ecosystem.
Sources
Alliance for the Great Lakes. 2010. “What’s New?” Great Lakes in My World K-8. Chicago, IL.
Appendix
Supporting Materials:
Student journal page “What’s New?”
Students play a game that demonstrates the abstract concept of introducing a new species into an ecosystem, and examine the impacts of invasive species on an ecosystem. Students will also look at maps and other resources to observe various pathways for how invasive species can enter a new ecosystem. In small groups, students study an invasive species selected from the set of Creature Cards, and the impacts of its introduction to the Great Lakes.
Teacher Background
Invasive species are non-native species that have arrived accidentally or have been brought intentionally from their native ecosystem to a new ecosystem and cause harm to the new ecosystem. Hundreds of examples of non-native species (also called exotic species) appearing in new ecosystems are known around the world. When a new species arrives in an ecosystem, the balance among native organisms may be altered, and competition is high until a new balance is achieved. Non-native species are not always invasive: sometimes the new species cannot survive in these new ecosystems; in other cases they cause no harm or may even be beneficial. However, if the new species survives and reproduces well, one or more native species populations can suffer, altering the ecosystem. A non-native species that causes harm to the environment, ecosystem, or people is known as an invasive species. Generally, invasive species can cause significant change to their newly adopted ecosystems.
According to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, about 1.4 trillion dollars a year is spent globally to control invasive species and to help repair the damage they cause. Within the Great Lakes region, commercial shipping has been responsible for over 60% of invasive species that have arrived since 1960. The Great Lakes states continue to seek solutions to preventing new invasive species from establishing themselves in the ecosystem. Many people have heard about zebra and quagga mussels in the Great Lakes, as well as the threat of Asian carp entering the Great Lakes. These are just a few examples of many nuisance plant and animal species that have moved or are poised to move between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins via the constructed Chicago Waterway System that has connected the two basins for over 100 years. Other non-native species introduced into the Great Lakes are: rusty crayfish, spiny water flea, common carp, Eurasian ruffe, sea lamprey, Eurasian water milfoil, rudd and New Zealand mudsnail. Other non-native species threatening to enter the Great Lakes are: the northern snakehead and the tench.
Suggested Student Prior Knowledge: Great Lakes creatures and food webs
Target Grade & Subject: Gr. 5-8, Science
Duration: one 50-minute class period
Instructional Setting: Classroom
Advance Preparation:
- Pull out the 9 invasive species cards from a set of Creature Cards.
- Locate images, videos or news stories of Asian carp, or Zebra or Quagga mussels attached to vessels or other objects.
Learning Objectives:
At the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
- Define invasive species.
- Explain the impact of invasive species on a food web.
Michigan Science Performance Expectation Addressed
3rd Grade:
3-LS4-3 Construct an argument with evidence that in a particular habitat some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all. [Clarification Statement: Examples of evidence could include needs and characteristics of the organisms and habitats involved. The organisms and their habitat make up a system in which the parts depend on each other.]
SEP: Science & Engineering Practices
Asking Questions and Defining Problems
Asking questions and defining problems in grades 6–8 builds from grades K–5 experiences and progresses to specifying relationships between variables and clarifying arguments and models.
DCI: Disciplinary Core Ideas
LS4.C: AdaptationFor any particular environment, some kinds of organisms survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.
CCC: Cross-Cutting Concepts
Cause and Effect
Cause and effect relationships are routinely identified and used to explain change.
Middle School:
MS-LS2-2 Construct an explanation that predicts patterns of interactions among organisms across multiple ecosystems. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on predicting consistent patterns of interactions in different ecosystems in terms of the relationships among and between organisms and abiotic components of ecosystems. Examples of types of interactions could include competitive, predatory, and mutually beneficial.]
DCI: Disciplinary Core Ideas
LS2.A: Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems
Similarly, predatory interactions may reduce the number of organisms or eliminate whole populations of organisms. Mutually beneficial interactions, in contrast, may become so interdependent that each organism requires the other for survival. Although the species involved in these competitive, predatory, and mutually beneficial interactions vary across ecosystems, the patterns of interactions of organisms with their environments, both living and nonliving, are shared.
LS2.C: Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning, and Resilience
CCC: Cross-Cutting Concepts
Patterns - Patterns can be used to identify cause and effect relationships.
SEP: Science & Engineering Practices https://ngss.nsta.org/PracticesFull.aspx
- Asking Questions and Defining Problems (Asking questions and defining problems in grades 6–8 builds on grades K–5 experiences and progresses to specifying relationships between variables, and clarifying arguments and models)
- Ask questions to identify and clarify evidence of an argument.
Materials & Quantities per class and per student group
Per class:
- 4 decks of playing cards
- Set of Creature Cards – 9 invasive species cards (alewife, bighead carp, hydrilla, quagga mussel, round goby, rusty crayfish, sea lamprey, spiny water flea, zebra mussel)
- Map of US to look at as a class (hung or projected on wall)
- Videos or images of Asian carp to share with the class
Per student:
- What’s New Journal Page
- Pencils, pens, markers and/or other writing utensils
- Journal
Guiding Questions:
- What is an invasive species?
- What impacts can invasive species have on a food web?
ENGAGE:
- Tell the students they’ll play a game to investigate invasive species. Break the class into four groups. Pass out a deck of 52 cards to each group. Tell the groups that they will each play a different card game and they should not share what they are doing with the other group.
- Two groups will play Last One Standing and two groups will play Go Fish.
- Last One Standing Rules:
- Cards are passed out to players until the deck is gone. One joker is in the deck.
- The joker is the “Last One Standing.” Players do not reveal their hands to each other.
- The object of the game is to run out of cards and not end up with the “last one standing” card.
- Players take turns taking one card from the hand of another player (any player).
- If a player has a match of numbers or faces in his/her hand, she/he should put down the match, face up.
- Play continues until all but one person is out of cards, and one player is left with the “last one standing” card.
- Go Fish rules:
- Seven cards are passed out to each player. The remainder of the deck is placed in the middle, face down.
- The object of the game is to get the most matches.
- Players take turns asking another player (any player) for specific number or face cards in order to find matches.
- For instance, a player asks any other player, “Do you have a queen?”
- If the player has the card, she/he turns it over to the asker. If not, she/he says “Go fish,” and the asker takes one card from the remaining deck.
- Whenever a player has a match, she/he should put it down.
- Play continues until everyone runs out of cards, and then players count their matches.
- Once the groups have each played for a little bit and everyone understands the rules, select two students from each group to trade places with students from a group playing a different game. These transferring students should go into the new group playing by the rules of their “home” game, without knowing the rules of the new game. If a student knows what the other game is, she/he should pretend not to know the rules and continue playing with the rules of their original game.
- The groups should be instructed to go on playing their games and not change the rules to accommodate the newcomers. With the newcomers, the games will change. These students are playing by different rules, changing the dynamic of the group. Some of the players’ situations may change or suffer because of the newcomers.
EXPLORE:
Supporting students during exploration: Questions that the teacher could ask to guide the exploration.
- What was the playing like before the switch? Were the situations calm and the rules easy to understand? Yes, everyone knew the rules and played by the same rules.
- What happened when the newcomers entered the group? The dynamics changed. It made things more difficult. Some people were frustrated. The new people didn’t understand how to play our game or play by our rules.
- Why do you think we played these games? What did these games and the switching of players from one game to the other represent? How is this similar to native and invasive species? What was the ecosystem in this scenario? This is what happens when a species from one ecosystem is introduced into another ecosystem --the species reproduces and causes change in the ecosystem. It takes a long time before the ecosystem reaches a balance again.
- Make sure students understand that invasive species are not “bad.” They have a home in another ecosystem, which means they are used to living by different rules. (Invasive species are plants or animals ‘out of place’)
- As a class, look at a map of the United States. Ask students to point out the Great Lakes and look for land and water bodies surrounding the Great Lakes. Students should identify cities, rivers, canals.
- Discuss how ships move back and forth between the Great Lakes and the ocean via rivers and canals. Students should find rivers and canals that connect the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean.
- Ask what these ships are carrying? cargo, people.
- Could they carry anything other than cargo? Yes, organisms could be attached to the ship’s hull. A hull is the watertight body of a ship or boat. Show photos of zebra or quagga mussels attached to a ship. In addition, organisms could be found in a ship’s ballast water. Explain that empty ships need to add weight to the bottom of their hulls for stability (so they won’t float “too high” and tip over), and that extra weight is often provided by pumping water into special tanks in the bottom and sides called ballast tanks. This ballast water can transport organisms from one area to another. Show pictures of organisms found in ballast water.
- Show videos or images of how organisms, such as carp, can swim up the Mississippi River and other rivers into the Great Lakes. Show students the Creature Cards of invasive species. Ask: ‘where are these species originally from?’ The ocean, other countries.
- Ask students how a new species entering the Great Lakes might affect the aquatic food web? These new organisms don’t play by the same rules, and they might mess things up.
EXPLAIN:
- In their journals, students write about what happened during the game.
- Next, students work in groups to investigate an invasive species from the Creature Cards. Have students brainstorm questions they could study, such as:
- What type of impact it has on the lake food web?
- Does it eat species that do not have a natural predator (i.e., another invasive species)?
- Does it eat something that is a food source for another species?
- Does it occupy the same habitat as another species?
ELABORATE:
- Ask each student or group of students to share information about their invasive species with another student or in small groups, looking for similarities and connections. Students can add information about their invasive species if theirs is connected to another species that they learn about.
Supporting students during elaboration: Questions that the teacher could ask to clarify student thinking.
- How do these invasive species impact native species?
- How might the food web change because of the introduction of this species?
EVALUATE:
- Students should write in their journal about how the food web might change because of the introduction of an invasive species.
Supporting students during evaluation: Questions the teacher could ask to tie students’ ideas to the big idea.
- How do these invasive species impact native species? Are all new/exotic species bad for the ecosystem?
New Vocabulary
Invasive species: plant or animal that enters an ecosystem to which it is not native and competes with one or more native species for food, shelter and/or reproductive opportunities.
Exotic species: a species that is non-native to an ecosystem.
Sources
Alliance for the Great Lakes. 2010. “What’s New?” Great Lakes in My World K-8. Chicago, IL.
Appendix
Supporting Materials:
Student journal page “What’s New?”
New lesson plan ideas are welcome and will be uploaded as they are received and approved.
We especially encourage lesson plans about:
Invasive species,
Science and science careers
For information about submitting new lesson plans, please contact jchadde(at)mtu.edu
Lesson plan ideas from other web sites:
From Pennsylvania Sea Grant: 10 lesson plans about interactions of invasive species, biodiversity, and climate change
Creation of the above page of educational resources was funded in part by the Michigan Invasive Species Grant Program through the Departments of Natural Resources, Environmental Quality, and Agricultural and Rural Development.
This material is also based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1614187.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
We especially encourage lesson plans about:
Invasive species,
Science and science careers
For information about submitting new lesson plans, please contact jchadde(at)mtu.edu
Lesson plan ideas from other web sites:
From Pennsylvania Sea Grant: 10 lesson plans about interactions of invasive species, biodiversity, and climate change
Creation of the above page of educational resources was funded in part by the Michigan Invasive Species Grant Program through the Departments of Natural Resources, Environmental Quality, and Agricultural and Rural Development.
This material is also based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1614187.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.