Public Service Announcement (and Extension Activity)
Student Objectives:
Students will:
research and analyze environmental data
suggest specific actions that would protect ecosystem services
Time: One-two 40-60 minute to prepare and one 40-60 minute period to present
Materials:
Research materials (articles, computers)
Copies of article “The Value of Healthy Estuaries” by Robert R. Christian found at http://www.actionbioscience.org/environment/christian.html
Procedures:
Step 1) Now that your students understand what ecosystem services are have them read the article “The Value of Healthy Estuaries” by Robert Christian.
Step 2) Pass out Student Handout 1- Estuarine Ecosystem Services and have students complete the handout focusing on an estuarine ecosystem service.
Possible list of an estuary’s ecosystem services students could choose from:
water regulation: flow of water across the planet surface (example: purification of water)
nutrient cycling: storage, processing, and acquisition of nutrients within the biosphere
recreation: opportunities for rest, refreshment, and recreation (example: ecotourism)
disturbance regulation: dampening of environmental fluctuations and disturbance (example: flood protection)
climate regulation: regulation of local to global climate processes
food: provisioning of edible plants and animals for human consumption
gas regulation: regulation of the chemical composition of the atmosphere and oceans (example: biotic carbon sequestration)
Possible list of estuarine biomonitoring species: (with a few examples of species that have been used)
Submerged Aquatic Vegetation (eel grass, wigeongrass, shoal grass, surfgrasses)
Bivalves (mussels, oysters, clams)
Macroinvertebrates (Polychaete worms Ghost shrimp, Japanese Skeleton shrimp)
Algae (Horned Wrack, Baldderwrack)
Finfish
Tunicates (Golden Star Tunicate, Orange Sheath Tunicate) and Sea Squirts
Barnacles (Northern Rock Barnacles, Goose barnacles)
Sponges (Red Beard Sponge, Palmate Sponge, Boring sponge)
North Carolina Water Quality Program has a page on biomonitoring with information on advantages and disadvantages of certain species as bioindicators (focused on watersheds but applicable to estuaries). http://www.water.ncsu.edu/watershedss/info/biomon.html
Useful links for student research- Ecosystem Services
eNature: This site provides searchable online field guides to over 5,500 species of plant and animal life. This is a very student-friendly site for research. http://www.enature.com
Earth Force website: This site provides a framework for students of all ages to discover and implement solutions to environmental problems in their communities. Free resources, newsletters, and links are available from this site. http://www.earthforce.org
Ecological Risk Assessment glossary http://www.epa.gov/risk_assessment/glossary.htm
The Ecosystem Services Database: The Ecoinformatics Collaboratory at the University of Vermont runs this database that spans fields from biodiversity conservation to the economic valuation of ecosystem services. http://ecoinformatics.uvm.edu/15/
Communicating Ecosystem Services website. This website contains a Communicating Ecosystem Services Tool kit focused on pollination, water purification, and marine nurseries. The marine nurseries took kit found on the site, has a variety of useful items such as fact sheets, case studies, and resources/references that fit well with looking at estuarine ecosystem services.
Extention Activity
Establishing a Dollar Value
Activity from Ecological Services in the Barnegat Bay Watershed by Ron Smith, Barnegat Bay Ecology & Conservation Curriculum
Students will:
Develop mathematical approaches to determining the value of ecological services within an estuary
Materials:
Research materials (articles, computers)
Calculators
List of local estuary issues (or use the list provided focused on Barnegat Bay, New Jersey)
Introduction
There is an increasing trend to calculate the worth of ecological services, those resources and processes supplied by species and ecosystems that benefit nature and humans (soil building, erosion control, pollination, carbon storage, fresh water cycling etc.) into a dollar amount. These services, provided for free by nature, are often taken for granted leading to environmental degradation resulting from unsustainable practices. This often in turn leads to an actual reduction in the ecological services.
As an example, let’s consider the pollination of blueberry bushes on a farm, in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, as a simple quantification of an ecological service- bee pollination,. A farmer can determine the yield of fruit per acre and the value of that harvest, though it might vary from one year to the next, and consequently assign a dollar amount to the pollination service provided by bees.
(Ex.) A farmer has 120 acres of blueberries that yield 6500 lbs per acre. If wholesale is $1.00 per pound, what is the value of the annual harvest?
Obviously there are other natural processes and human investment that is to be included in the total value. So how much of that total value should be connected directly to the pollination of the plants by insects? Many farmers hire bee keepers to bring in apiaries so as to maximize the pollination of their crops, but some pollination also occurs from wild pollinators.
The condition of our estuaries can be connected to the ecological services that have been compromised or reduced by causes such as land use within the watershed. Many of the specific environmental concerns within our bays: nutrient levels, decline in submerged aquatic vegetation and sediment load, may be addressed by increasing the public's understanding of the important and cost of ecological services.
Provide for your students the below list (or your own) with the instructions:
For each of the following issues within the Barnegat Bay watershed, describe the ecological services at work and the species of organisms and/or ecosystems that provide that service. Also include the benefits provided to humans as a result of these services.
Blue Crab Population
Sediment Load within the Bay
Elevated Nutrient Levels
Beach Dune Maintenance
Fresh Water Supply
For the ecological services described above, develop an approach to determining how much the services would be worth. This can be per year or per season. Include in your description how these services would be funded if they no longer were functioning correctly. From the example in the introduction, it would be reasonable that the cost of pollination would ultimately be passed on to the consumer.