Conservation issues

Level 6 and 7

Curriculum Area: Science, SOSE, Technology.

Outcomes

Students:

• Describe the complex interactions of living things in an ecosystem.
• Identify the impact of environmental change on living things and ecosystems.
• Identify measures put in place to protect living things and ecosystems.
• Use evidence to justify conclusions.
• Use desktop publishing to produce an information brochure.

Materials and preparation

Familiarity with the three food webs of the kit
Reference information - books, CD ROMs, internet access, species information from the kit.
The food webs and picture cut-outs for group use.

Method

In small groups the students choose one from the list of conservation issues below. Make sure the class, as a whole, covers most of the list.

Students research their issue including the impact and consequences in terms of what happens in the food web, and protection measures including legislation. The groups then develop a desktop-published A4 size folded pamphlet as a handout a conservation organisation could use to explain this issue for students undertaking school projects.

Each group then imagines that they work for a conservation organisation and that they have been asked to go to a school and talk about their conservation issue. Using the picture cut-outs and the pamphlet information they have developed (they may like to produce overheads for their presentation), the students give a presentation to the class.

Conservation issues