I Spy with My Little Eye... A Changing Landscape?

Description

Grade Level: 6th-8th

Appropriate Course: Earth/ Environmental Science

This PBI Unit will look at some major Florida coastal ecosystems and the changes they are currently undergoing. The initial exposing event will be a field trip (it could also be pictures of the site). Students will travel, either physically or virtually, to Cedar Key on the West Coast. It is here that students will be able to visually experience a changing landscape. There are 3-4 ecosystems currently present at the site that students can see, coastal hammocks, salt marshes, mangroves, and a transition site (from coastal hammock to a salt marsh/mangrove ecosystem). During this exposing event students will set out to explore each area, take pictures of flora and fauna present, take notes on observations of what they notice about where each ecosystem is located in relation to the water and what landmarks they see as well, and take samples of flora if needed. Students will have keys to help them identify certain species within each ecosystem. After this, students are tasked with researching and exploring the causes for the shift in the landscape that they witnessed at Cedar Key. Students should use what they know and learned about each ecosystem, what they observed at the site in terms of distances between water and land, the inclusion of a road way, and the samples they took to identify a shift in landscape due to increased salinity levels in the soil. Students will also be tasked with identifying how saline water has been able to gradually increase its distance onto land (storm surges and the decrease in protection due to no coastal hammock trees). Once this issue has been identified, students will be tasked with creating a model of what the site will look 25 years in the future.

Resources

For Students

• Science Journal App for data & observation collection

• Global Peak Surge Map

• Surges in Cedar Key

• Storm Surge

• Beach Dune, Coastal Strand and Maritime Hammock

Supplemental Material for Teachers on the Subject & Issue

• Putz "Coastal Forests Retreat"

• PowerPoint on History of Site (w/additional material on plant species' adaptation to different salt tolerances and consequences of too much salt)

Standards

CTE-AFNR.68.PLANT.02.05 Develop a specimen collection of local plant materials.

CTE-AFNR.68.ENVIRO.04.03 Identify major ecosystems in Florida.

CTE-AFNR.68.ENVIRO.04.04 Discuss the importance of the ecosystems to agriculture, society, and each other.

CTE-AFNR.68.ENVIRO.05.03 Describe how trees grow, reproduce, and components of forest health.

SC.6.E.6.2 Recognize that there are a variety of different landforms on Earth's surface such as coastlines, dunes, rivers, mountains, glaciers, deltas, and lakes and relate these landforms as they apply to Florida.

SC.6.E.7.7 Investigate how natural disasters have affected human life in Florida.

SC.6.N.1.5 Recognize that science involves creativity, not just in designing experiments, but also in creating explanations that fit evidence.

SC.6.N.3.4 Identify the role of models in the context of the sixth/seventh/eighth grade science benchmarks.

Learning Objectives

By the end of the unit, students should be able to:

1. Identify the unique and different coastal ecosystems they experienced

2. Collect plant samples that allow them to later identify the species

3. Understand the impact that soil salinity has on plants species

4. Identify specific characteristics of ecosystems, which can tolerate saline soils, the levels of salt appropriate for each ecosystem, etc.

5. Understand the importance of each ecosystem and its role in the coastal environment

6. Rationalize the reasons for increased salinity are due to sea water washing ashore during storms and hurricanes

7. Create a model that represents the complex idea of the future of this ecosystem and express reasoning for what ecosystem will take over and why

Timeline

This Unit will take approximately 2 weeks, with an initial all day field trip to Cedar Key and 9 progressive 50 minute period school days to work on the rest. The schedule is linked here: "I Spy with My Little Eye... A Changing Landscape?" Unit Schedule

Products

Students will be expected to produce models of what they think the site will look in 25 years. Students will be tasked with using what they learned to make decisions on how they think the landscape will transition. There are multiple possibilities for what the students may answer, and if argued and rationalized appropriately, all could be correct. They could argue that salt marshes will over take the remaining coastal hammocks and choke out the mangroves that are starting to grow, mangrove could be the winners as well and take over, they could argue that the salinity will increase to be more than any ecosystem can handle and so it will be a barren beach, they could also be optimistic and hope for less hurricanes or human involvement in restoring the site to what it once was, a coastal hammock. The possibilities are endless, the reasoning is where the students should be able to display their knowledge and what they have come to understand about the changing landscape.

Presentations

Students will present their models and their own rationale behind their decisions on what the site will look like in 25 years (Rubric for Presentations). While each student presents, those who are the audience will grade the presenter based on their argument and the evidence they bring forward to justify their model (Peer Review Form). Within the audience will also be an invited coastal ecologist, a conservationist, and a representative of Cedar Key to hear their presentations and give feedback as well.

Rationale

This project-unit relates what most people love, the beach, with the reality of what is happening in those locations. Many students are not old enough to be able to see gradual and natural changes in locations they live or visit. You need to be able to look at a larger time span, but this site at Cedar Key offers a view of 20+ years of change in one location all at once. This project shows students the past, present, and potential future of what many beaches may soon look like across Florida. By relating a lesson on ecosystems to the ecosystems that students like, I am able to teach them about the processes that occur and changes that happen that we do not often notice. An additional benefit is that they are able to see their own home state being used as the example, this is not a far away location or hypothetical beach, this is a real beach where some of them may have even gone to enjoy with their family. By bringing these issues closer to the students, they will remember those lessons for the rest of their lives. Every time they go to a beach, they'll look for those transition sites and what that beached looked like 25 years ago and what it may look like in 25 years.