The story connects this lowly fungus to climate change - the harvest is down significantly, so prices are soaring. It also mentions that spores from imported Chinese truffles have infected some of the truffle sites in Europe - invasive species! I showed the clip to my classes with this document of guiding questions (download it below). They put it all together pretty quickly.
Students take on the role of naturalist discovering a plant for the first time. They look closely, name the plant, collect detailed information about it, and sketch it. As a fun extension, have the students exchange their work with another class, and see if they can identify the mystery plants.
Students choose an aquatic ecosystem in the state of Maine. After in depth research into the health of that ecosystem, students share their findings. This rubric and instruction sheet guide students as they work independently on their research.
Vital Signs data is used by students, the public, and professional scientists to better understand invasive and native species in Maine. For that reason, observations need to be of a certain quality to ensure their usefulness. Before students do their own data collection, they take time to explore and decide what good quality data looks like.
Use A Picture of Health to prime students to think about what it means to be healthy. Before they tackle ecosystem health, students consider human health – a topic more familiar that they all have personal experience with. Students look at a set of photographs of people that show a range of health. They work together to arrange them along a continuum from healthy to unhealthy. They practice backing up their decisions with reasons and evidence, a skill they will use when assessing ecosystem health.
Doctors and nurses routinely check “vital signs” (temperature, pulse, blood pressure, breathing, etc.) to get a sense of a person’s health. Similarly, scientists use tools to check an ecosystem’s “vital signs” and assess health. Students practice the Vital Signs Fieldwork Skills that will ultimately help them collect high quality data to determine the health of their own local ecosystem.
Public Service Announcements are short videos that try to convince people to pay attention to something, think differently, or behave a certain way. Students create a series of 30- or 60-second Public Service Announcements that explain, raise awareness, generate support, change behavior, or motivate action!
This is a fun game where participants explore habitat and nesting bird sites with regard to invasive species. Specifically, it addresses the competition between native birds and invasive bird species when it comes to habitat resources and predators.
Vital Signs is a Gulf of Maine Research Institute Program. Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 3.0 License.
