Ninth Grade General Biology

Tyrell Coates

Succession After Disturbance

Ninth Grade General Biology

Subject Area Description______

In the fall of 2005 I will be teaching succession after disturbance as an introductory ecology unit at BellevueHigh School. Bellevue is located in an upper class urban area, and the majority of Bellevue students are white and upper class. Although quite socioeconomically and racially homogeneous, Bellevue students vary greatly in scientific skills and motivation. By ninth grade, many have ruled out science as a career, while others are using General Biology as a stepping stone to AP Biology, AP Chemistry, or AP Environmental Science. Therefore, I have designed a unit that is highly relevant and offers a variety of challenges to appeal to this student body.

Although succession is the first science unit these students will encounter in high school, I expect the majority of them to have a foundation of skills and content from being middle school students in a results-driven school district. Specifically, I expect students to have experience with all EALRs I am incorporating into my unit at the eighth grade level. These concepts and skills include the analysis of systems and their parts, theories like natural selection and biodiversity, the interaction of organisms within an ecosystem, an understanding of the construction of scientific explanations, the use of models in explaining processes, explaining inconsistent results, the use of curiosity and skepticism in scientific investigations, the use of multiple solutions, and the effect of humans on ecosystems. Overall, students should have an introduction to relevant content, and experience with ‘cookbook’ or structured inquiry.

Essential Questions______

In the succession unit, students will be tackling the overarching question: “How do we get from fire to forest?” This question will be presented in the context of forest fires that will occur in the summer of 2005 in local forests (especially the western and eastern foothills of the Cascades, which most students will have visited). To answer this question, students will need to learn the following content: types of disturbance, costs and benefits of disturbance, types of succession, biotic and abiotic resources needed by plants, reproductive strategies of plants, the influence of competition on community structure, the role of natural selection as the driving force in competition, alternate population interactions like mutualism and commensalism, and the significance of niches in ecosystem success. These previous concepts all work in concert to influence community composition; now students will shift their focus to answering the essential question “What’s your niche?” During this portion, students will gain and apply analogy-building skills, and evaluate the overall structure of plant communities. As entry point into the study of plant communities, students will consider their niche within the school community. Furthermore, they will need to learn what criteria scientists use to determine what a community is; this portion of the unit prepares students for a culminating inquiry, where they will evaluate the health of a plant community. When students have worked through this necessary content, they will move on to answering the final essential question, “How can we tell if an ecosystem is healthy?” During this portion of the unit, students will learn and apply inquiry skills like writing scientific questions, model-making, investigational design, data collection, data analysis and conclusion-making, and model refinement. Also, students will examine theoretical and practical methods for assessing ecosystem health, such as biodiversity, distribution, and the quality of biotic and abiotic resources. Through this inquiry, students will understand how and why succession occurs, and how to evaluate the success of the process.

Learning Goals and Objectives______

Goal One (Content): Students will understand factors that influence community

composition such as abiotic and biotic resources,

population interactions, competition, natural selection, and

reproductive strategies.

[EALR1, GLE 1.2.1, 1.3.9, 1.3.10]

Learning Objectives

1.1Students will theorize the roles of abiotic and biotic resources in forest succession.

1.2Students will understand the characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages of fast

and slow-colonizing plants.

1.3Students will apply their knowledge of reproductive strategies to analyzing a real plant community.

1.4Students will analyze the impacts of competition and natural selection on plant communities.

1.5Students will theorize and construct rules about the mechanisms of natural

selection and competition.

1.6Students will explain the concepts of mutualism, commensalism, predation, and

parasitism to base groups members.

Goal Two (Content): Students will understand that disturbance and succession

create diverse plant communities and subsequent niches, and

that disturbance is necessary for ecosystem health.

[EALR 1, 3; GLE 1.2.1, 1.3.10, 3.2.4]

Learning Objectives

2.1Students will understand the types and causes of disturbance and succession.

2.2Students will understand the concept of plant communities and niches, and critique the parallel nature of plant and human communities.

2.3Students will understand the purpose and theoretical and practical considerations of measuring ecosystem health.

Goal Three (Inquiry): Students will gain experience in scientific inquiry through the

guided assessment of the health of a local ecosystem, specifically

through question-writing, model-making, investigation design,

data collection and analysis, conclusion-making, and model

refinement.

[EALR 2, 3; GLE 2.1.3, 2.1.4, 2.2.1, 2.2.3, 3.1.3]

Learning Objectives

3.1 Students will construct a knowledge base for inquiry by creating a KWL chart.

3.2Students will build modeling skills necessary for guided inquiry by creating

pictorial representations of their ideas.

3.3Students will model their hypotheses about how their chosen factor acts as

an indicator of succession/ecosystem health.

3.4Students will theorize about the most important indicators of ecosystem health and give a rationale for each.

3.5Students will construct content-rich, plausible scientific questions about ecosystem health.

3.6Students will construct a method for organizing their data about their chosen indicator and support their methods with a strong rationale.

3.7Students will analyze data to find trends about the indicator of ecosystem health that they chose to study.

3.8Students will analyze ecosystem health and provide evidence for their opinions.

Goal Four (Value = Communication): Students will gain experience with and respect for alternate scientific and social perspectives through class discussion and group work.

Learning Objectives:

4.1Students will work within assigned roles in base groups and allow all members to fully participate.

4.2Students will carefully consider the ideas of others and try to incorporate them into their own scientific perspective.

Unit Matrix______

DAY ONE: Disturbance and Succession Overview

1. What students are doing: / Eliciting ideas: Students will describe types of disturbance common in the Pacific Northwest that they are familiar with, as well as recent examples. Then, students will watch a video clip of forest fires that occurred over the summer, as well as a video clip showing a climax NW forest. Students will next create an individual KWL chart to consider the essential question “How do we get from fire to forest?” Once all students have completed a KWL chart, we will compile their ideas on the board into a chart for the entire class. For the last segment, students will take brief notes about the definitions and examples of primary and secondary succession, climax communities, and manmade and natural disturbance.
2. Learning objectives: / 2.1Students will understand the types and causes of disturbance and
succession.
3.1Students will construct a knowledge base for inquiry by creating a
KWL chart.
3. Reasons for content and
instructional strategy: / I am starting the unit with examples and an overview of succession and disturbance because they are fundamental concepts in ecology, and an occurrence common enough for all students to relate to. Succession is a phenomenon that is broad enough to incorporate major ecological and evolutionary concepts, yet it happens everyday after forest fires, developments, farming, etc. To emphasize this point, I am introducing the concepts through video of forest fires that happened a few miles away, a few weeks away. That’s relevant!
I chose to elicit student ideas about disturbance and succession using class discussion and a KWL chart because my goal for the first day is to ground future learning in student interests and prior knowledge, as well as to convey the importance of their involvement in the learning process. Also, I want students to begin thinking about possible inquiry questions, and to see that there is still much to explore in forest ecology. To ensure involvement of all students, I am beginning with a common experience (the video and KWL chart), and encouraging students to share their ideas in an effort to foster a community of respectful, student-centered learning.
4. Evidence of
understanding: / There are two main pieces of evidence of student understanding from today’s class. First, I will note the prior knowledge and ideas about disturbance and succession elicited by the warm-up activity. Second, I will read the KWL charts created by individual students, as well as consider class ideas about the answer to our essential question. Consequently, I will get a good picture of what students already know about fires and other disturbances and how forests grow back, as well as their ability to form and convey a scientific question in the KWL chart.
5. Cultural responsiveness: / This lesson will give all students an accessible entry point into the unit because I am basing future lessons on ideas elicited during the warm-up and during the KWL chart section. Also, I am introducing the topic via local forest fires, which all students should be familiar with. These measures will show students that they have a role in the scientific community, and will give them a chance to get involved in scientific ideas and projects without much prior knowledge or experience. Also, I will read each KWL chart so students who are timid about sharing their ideas with the group will still be validated for their participation. For those who do share their ideas with the group, I will protect their right to respect in the classroom by revoicing and encouraging them in front of other students. Overall, this lesson is student-centered, which is a vast departure from typical high school science classrooms; this philosophy will encourage typically inactive students to get interested.
6. Resources needed: / Each student will need a lab book to record their KWL charts, and I will need a TV, VCR, and appropriate videos. Also, I will need a Powerpoint to briefly introduce terms.

DAY TWO: Biotic and Abiotic Resources; AnalogyBuilding

1. What students are doing: / Eliciting ideas and analogy-building: Students will begin the day by brainstorming in base groups the living and non-living resources they need to live and grow. A spokesperson for each group will share their ideas with the class. Then, students will be introduced to the idea that forests, too, need living and non-living resources to grow and that after a forest fire there is a blank slate that needs to be filled with plants. Also, students will be introduced to the words ‘abiotic’ and ‘biotic’.
Introduction to modeling: In base groups, students will conjecture a “recipe” of living and non-living resources needed for a forest to grow, and make a pictorial representation of their ideas. Next to each resource, students will give a short rationale for including that resource and the purpose of that resource. All base group members will be assigned a role, such as timekeeper, facilitator, and recorder.
2. Learning objectives: / 1.1 Students will theorize the roles of abiotic and biotic resources in
forest succession.
3.2 Students will build modeling skills necessary for guided inquiry
by creating pictorial representations of their ideas.
3. Reasons for content and
instructional strategy: / I chose to introduce students to abiotic and biotic resources necessary for succession because my unit of instruction follows the actual succession process. The first consideration for forest regrowth is the tools available; these available resources also greatly impact the composition of the primary and subsequent plant communities.
I chose to elicit student ideas as a tool in analogy building to keep the idea of living and non-living resources relevant and accessible; reminding students of all that they have in common with plants puts the phenomenon of succession into a familiar context as well. In order to foster an effective learning community and to ensure the participation of all students, I put students in base groups with assigned roles. These base groups will get a fun, relevant introduction to the pictorial representation of ideas, and also create an informative poster that will decorate the room. This segment is therefore a mutually beneficial process that provides a building block for inquiry.
4. Evidence of
understanding: / To assess student understanding, I will record the ideas presented by base group spokespeople about necessary resources for human life. Then, I will examine the resources and rationales on the posters. Overall, I will get an idea of student knowledge about resources needed by living things and the reason that these resources are a necessity, as well as my class’ skills in basic modeling.
5. Cultural responsiveness: / This lesson is culturally responsive because it fosters an equitable, student-centered learning community through the use of assigned roles and base groups. Students will be familiar with the expectations for respectful group work; therefore all students will be included in the group project or group members will be penalized. Along with monitoring the dynamics of group work, I will encourage marginalized students to share ideas by choosing them as spokespeople during the introductory activity, and then revoicing their ideas, if necessary. The format of this lesson challenges the traditional culture of school science by creating analogies to bridge the gap between student understanding and scientific thought, and by allowing students to be the experts in the use of resources.
6. Resources needed: / Poster paper and pens, general examples of ways to represent ideas as pictures.

DAY THREE: Reproductive Strategies- A Brief Investigation

1. What students are doing: / InteractiveConceptBuilding: Students will take notes on a brief introduction of the two main reproductive strategies of plants- those of quick-breeding colonizers, and those of slow-breeding succeeders. Characteristics and examples of each kind of plant will be included, as well as analogies with animals, and common growth curves.
Investigation, Think-Pair-Share: Then, students will go with a partner to Bellevue’s backyard, where there is a small, approx. 30 year old community of plants. There they will choose one species of plant and note its size and frequency, as well as any other characteristics they deem important based on today’s introduction. Back in the classroom, they will answer discussion questions about their chosen plants, such as ‘what type of reproductive style do you think your plant has? why?’, ‘what are the advantages of that reproductive style? disadvantages?’, and ‘do you think that plant species will be flourishing in that area in ten years? why?’ At the end of class, I will randomly select students to share their answers to the discussion questions. Students may have to finish the worksheet as homework.
2. Learning objectives: / 1.2 Students will understand the characteristics, advantages, and
disadvantages of fast and slow-colonizing plants.
1.3 Students will apply their knowledge of reproductive strategies to
analyzing a real plant community.
3. Reasons for content and
instructional strategy: / Placing the reproductive strategies lesson in between the resource and competition/natural selection lessons is a good example of how lessons can effectively build on each other. The availability of resources directs which reproductive strategies are most successful, while inter and intra-strategy competition shapes community composition. Reproductive strategies are also important to succession as a whole because they determine everything from which plants are the initial colonizers to which plants become keystone species. Also, I chose only the most important aspects of reproductive strategies for students to understand related to the inquiry.
I chose to begin with a brief lecture instead of eliciting ideas or having a long exploration because I wanted to give students the tools and time to complete the shorter investigation and discuss the strategies themselves right away. The investigation allows students to leave the classroom and see some of the content we have been discussing; they will then have a context with which to frame later learning, because the forest behind Bellevue contains common NW plants. Then, they are working with one partner to make sure that each student gets to participate fully and really work with the ideas in the discussion questions. Finally, I want students to share some of their thinking with their peers so that those who need to finish the worksheet as homework will be on the right track, or be exposed to another viewpoint they hadn’t considered.
4. Evidence of
understanding: / I will be collecting the worksheets that the students fill out, as well as listening in on discussions that pairs of students are having. Overall, I plan to assess how well students understand the basics of reproductive strategies and how those strategies apply to real communities through these two assessment tools.
5. Cultural responsiveness: / This lesson is culturally responsive because it allows students to make their own conclusions about their investigation instead of simply being told the reproductive styles utilized by local plants. Therefore, they are active participants in scientific dialogue, unlike a traditional science classroom. Also, work in pairs will be monitored closely, and I will intervene if effective cooperation isn’t occurring. Working closely in pairs and discussing questions with more then one right answer forces students to consider another person’s point of view. Furthermore, by allowing students to view reproductive strategies first hand, they are given a common experience and entry point, with little to no prior knowledge necessary.
6. Resources needed: / Powerpoint notes on reproductive strategies, worksheets

DAYS FOUR AND FIVE: Competition and Natural Selection via Guided Exploration