In this unit, students consider what they know about fire and recent news about massive fires and make arguments from different perspectives about how fire can be both a hazard and a benefit to plants and animals, including humans. They observe and describe cycles of ecosystems and compare plants in those ecosystems to identify plant traits that are dependent on fire and adapted to fire. Students consider how human activity has created conditions for massive fires. They make models for how burns can be a solution to protect threatened ecosystems and to protect the animals that live there. 

• Ecosystems, habitats, and adaptation

• Fire ecology; The fire triangle; Heat, potential energy, and energy transfers

• Carry out observations and investigations to predict changes to landforms and Earth surfaces.

• Recognise and use patterns and relationships

This unit has a creativity and critical thinking focus:

• Generate and play with a variety of ideas and propose, produce, and revise a personally novel model of how land is changing.

• Reflect on models based on evidence collected across the unit and consider different perspectives to explain what is causing change in different places.

Web and Print

• Photographs of varied landforms 

•  Driving Question Board (DQB) to keep track of class and student questions 

• Step 2: Texts of interviews with Fire Ecologists- Toni https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TIRoH13Pj_HzKPyfOIdUEccUbaXIcMwMZs5Ra4cGLWw/

• edit and interview for Toni https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cBcWHwjR6dw3ffmOLbOJqqEwL1tHKOr3vy604fEW26w/edit,

•  Chris  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AJtNFBRIgWFeCCK1B_aYeWZ_PrQqkiwh0yfXbno5n2o/

• edit and interview for Chrishttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1k3qL8ebKEIUoNew1Nv06MdSpSVzj7nddVeF4jEULlo0/edit ; 

• and Katie https://docs.google.com/document/d/1enSbI8Fs0xqh_TvTrpuaOptKyIgOgXmPx6TeOM1aq8M/edit 

• and interview for Katie and Amanda https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bY4pC1LGXRIVUJ7deLADUo8jUluADP5M7wXPZpUrak8/

• edit and interview for Amanda https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bfYJ7sC_Jb_3aKoGJ6_Mur5gtwp9SPpeAkr70CUG15s/edit 

• Step 3 Graph https://docs.google.com/a/madison.k12.wi.us/document/d/1LD1oLQJFmB08mRE59c_AY48dsWAo0vNSxxED_kjrlMI/edit?usp=sharing  that illustrates how many uncontrolled fires there were in the United States from 1985 to 2014. Further figures can be found on the IPCC website, for example, here https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/figures/summary-for-policymakers/  

• Step 4 The fire triangle https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/18xxM3QuLtBOrMVF_a80CSv8KEU4jzXeXk6-TeZZhLqc/edit#slide=id.g1d0edabc39_0_13 

• Step 6 Six photos of a forest responding after a controlled firehttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1WXsA4JGBHhBq_rUdvGeQjDr3h-EuAhlyoLFcFuVo_fg/edit ; 

• Time-lapsed video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoQA6gGEyLg&ab_channel=TheNatureConservancy

        Other Resources

• Household materials to build stream tables: containers, earth materials (sand and rocks)

      Opportunities to adapt, extend, and enrich

• This mini-unit is based on portions of the first two learning sets in a sequence of five learning sets. The remaining learning sets have students examine how different fire ecologists respond to a concern in their environments, and how fire serves as one important tool in their toolbox. 

•  Remaining learning sets, along with additional STEM project-learning units and related resources can be found at https://sprocket.lucasedresearch.org/course/science4/fire-ecology

•  and https://mlpbl.open3d.science/

•  ML-PBL Units were co-developed by the Multiple Literacies in Project-based Learning Project at Michigan State University and the University of Michigan 2018–2020. ML-PBL units are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License and were funded by the George Lucas Educational Foundation.

English Version

• https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AJiqKibgScweberIihkQogENHPhD25bEWFzyNFLk4zg/edit?usp=sharing

Hindi Version

• https://docs.google.com/document/d/16_gKJF0O-SPLsFRv0rpGhtv_nxnh1I81If_v_r_en_g/edit?usp=sharing

Gujarati Version

• https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qjkC02eJ5GDvs89ErNGoYWNpE3OrtLWgImAoOghOb-o/edit?usp=sharing

Kannada Version

•  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PX2R5WxkIcnum-M9Ri03Vpld6iLt1ie_AY6Hh2X6mYo/edit?usp=drive_link