Teacher’s Page
This web-quest is designed to educate students in the crises that face endangered species. Poaching, illegal pet trade, habitat destruction and climate change are all responsible for the decimation of nearly every mega-fauna species on the planet, not to mention micro-species and everything in between. Thanks to NGSS, many students are now educated in these issues as early as elementary school and front loading isn't necessary. However, garnering student interest is key to a meaningful experience. Find ways to excite students and prepare them for the journey they will take in this project. I've found that a well placed documentary can capture a student's interest and motivate them to dig deep into the literature. "The Last Animals" is highly recommended as film that captures the interest of students. It is available for rent or purchase from Amazon and will take approximately 2-1/2 to 3 class periods to show the whole film.
Task 1: To help students collect meaningful data, you may first need to help them define observed behaviors. Begin by teaching them to create a behavior inventory. Project a webcam on the screen (select a webcam that has an easily spotted species within view). Help students identify common behaviors exhibited by the species of interest. Show them how to create a code for each behavior. Then do a couple of “trial run” data collection sessions with them using the coding system they developed for the behavior inventory.Explain to them the difference between sampling data and continuous data. We are interested in sampling data in this project. Only write down what the animal is doing at one-minute intervals.
**Suggest that students collect data sets at different times of the day to get a more comprehensive picture of behavior ranges.
Task 2: Encourage students to use district-approved databases for their research. Explain that the open Internet, while useful, is full of unreliable information. In science, we are interested in peer reviewed, reliable information. As they become more experienced at research they will be better able to spot a reliable source of information from an unreliable one. Until then, it’s better to stick with databases and resources that have been reviewed by their teacher.
STRESS the importance of PARAPHRASING! Explain that copying articles word for word is NEVER permitted, as it is plagiarism. Students should also understand that, even when they have paraphrased a source, they still need to cite and reference the source. Even though they have put the idea in their own words, the original idea is not theirs and credit must be given. Instruct students in the proper methods of referencing and citing resources. Use: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_style_introduction.html