Invasive Species Impacts On Biodiversity In A Maine Watershed

Overview

Biodiversity demands a mastery of a world of details. It entails knowledge of the characteristics and behaviors that distinguish individuals, species, genera, families, orders, and classes from each other. It requires acquiring both the tools and propensities to see and characterize variation within and between species. It requires a comprehensive knowledge of ecosystem types and functions. And it requires an awareness of evolutionary, geological, and human history.

Ready, Set, Science! 2008

Use Vital Signs to investigate how invasive species may influence biodiversity in your local watershed. Your research question: Does biodiversity change or stay the same throughout our watershed? Why? To answer this question, conduct research in a nearby habitat. Then compare your findings with existing invasive species and biodiversity data from two other habitats in your watershed. Before you do your research, take time to hone your observation skills and become an expert in telling different species apart. In the field use these skills and the Vital Signs datasheets, species identification resources, and scientific equipment to collect species and habitat information. Contribute your data to the Vital Signs database where it will be shared with an online community of students, teachers, citizen scientists, and professional scientists. Using the Vital Signs database, maps, and analysis tools, compare your habitat findings to ecosystems located upstream and downstream. Use your findings to better understand how biodiversity changes through a watershed and what factors (like invasive species and habitat loss) may influence these changes. Create media projects that motivate others in your watershed to use Vital Signs to investigate biodiversity in their local community. Together the data that you and other Vital Signs students contribute will help everyone better understand and address environmental issues across Maine.

Inquiry Level

This Watershed Experience for grades 7 & 8 students follows a Guided Inquiry Approach to instruction and learning. Teachers and students share responsibility for various components of their investigation and action projects. Teachers present students with their research question and methods. Students then assume significant ownership of their inquiry process, using team work and peer review to scaffold their learning experience. After providing students ample structure to develop a solid persuasive and motivational message, teachers then let students drive the process of designing, creating, and publishing their own media projects.

Overview of Standards

Issue

Problem Statement

In Maine and across the planet, invasive species are an increasing threat to diverse and healthy ecosystems.

Background Information

Bi-o-di-ver-si-ty n. The many different species of living things found within a defined geographic region A healthy ecosystem doesn’t just have a lot of organisms, it has a lot of different organisms. This is called biodiversity. Biodiversity is one of the best signs that an ecosystem is healthy, productive, resilient, and able to sustain itself naturally over time. Diverse ecosystems are important to Maine and to the health of the planet. Biodiversity provides natural services, resources, and cultural benefits. Services include protecting water resources and soil, storing nutrients, recycling, breaking down and absorbing pollution, stabilizing the climate, and preventing and recovering from natural and human disturbance. Resources include food, medicine, and products. Cultural benefits include research, education, recreation, tourism, and a source of values and tradition. The two biggest threats to biodiversity worldwide are habitat loss and invasive species. In Maine plants and animals lose their habitat and the resources they need to survive primarily through urban development. Invasive species are a growing threat to biodiversity in Maine. Without predators to keep their populations in balance, invasive species are able to out-compete native species for food, shelter, and space. The introduction of an invasive species may increase biodiversity in an area in the short term, but biodiversity often rapidly declines once this new species establishes and expands its population.

Introduction

Through group discussion and hands-on activities, students will learn what biodiversity means and why it is important for their watershed. A firsthand simulated experience will help them understand how the introduction of an invasive species may impact biodiversity in an ecosystem. Activities will engage student interest and lay the conceptual foundation for their field investigation and action.

1. What does biodiversity mean?

   Watch Bill Nye’s Biodiversity Part I and play Biodiversity Jenga to warm-up to the concept of biodiversity, and the importance of maintaining healthy, diverse ecosystems. Use Diversity Statements to create a working definition of diversity and biodiversity that everyone understands and can use effectively. The definition and lists you generate in this activity will be a useful reference as you start thinking about diversity in another, bigger place – your watershed.

2. What areas, big and small, do scientists use in their statements about biodiversity?

   Take a Google Earth Diversity Trip to engage with the idea of biodiversity in your watershed. Get familiar with your own watershed and set the stage for your experience as a native, non-native, or invasive species vying for resources in your watershed.

3. How does the introduction of a new species affect the biodiversity in your watershed?

   Play There’s a New Bird in Town to experience how an invasive species may out-compete native species for vital resources. Simulate the introduction of non-native and invasive species using MnMs and various kitchen drawer items. Experience firsthand what happens and what if feels like when native and invasive species compete for essential resources. High stakes. High energy. Play Oh Deer: Invasive Species Style to experience how a community of native animals and plants changes over time in response to resource availability. Experience, graph, and analyze how the introduction of an invasive species can disrupt the ebbs and flows of natural communities. Active. Competitive.

How are invasive species affecting biodiversity in your local watershed? How can you know for sure? Investigate!

Investigation

Use the Vital Signs program (Science Notebooks, datasheets, sampling methods, and analysis tools, dialogue with an online community of scientists, citizen scientists, teachers, and peers) to guide and carry out your biodiversity investigation. Research whether biodiversity changes or stays the same at select points throughout your local watershed, and consider how invasive species and other factors may influence your biodiversity findings.

How do scientists investigate biodiversity in a watershed?

Although there is no fixed set of steps that all scientists follow, scientific investigations usually involve the collection of relevant evidence, the use of logical reasoning, and the application of imagination in devising hypotheses and explanations to make sense of the collected evidence. Benchmarks for Science Literacy

Set up your investigation and prepare for fieldwork

1. Go to the Vital Signs website.

Note: We highly recommend that you attend a Vital Signs Teacher Institute at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland before you do a Vital Signs investigation with your students. Check the events calendar for dates.

 

2. Register or log in.

3. Go to your personal My Vital Signs page (upper right of screen)

4. Add a new investigation under your Investigation History

5. If you haven’t done so already, choose your research sites. You will need:

• A nearby site for your field work investigation
• 1-2 comparison sites for your online investigation

Note: If you need help finding comparison sites, consult the Vital Signs map. Find your watershed. Find your study site. Pick two interesting comparison sites where people have already collected data. Consider picking one upstream of your site and one downstream, or one in an urban spot and one rural spot, or one far away and one close by.

 

6. Enter your investigation details as prompted. Create usernames and passwords for each of your student teams.

7. Access Species & Habitat Survey datasheets, species identification cards, approved sampling methods, team protocols, and equipment lists that you will need for your investigation.

8. Once your investigation is set up online, you and your student teams may access your online Vital Signs Science Notebooks though your My Vital Signs pages. The Notebook guides and prompts you to enter your research question, state a prediction or hypothesis, and plan your investigation methods. Complete these parts of the Notebook now. After you do your fieldwork, return to your Notebook to analyze your data, reflect on your experience, conclude your investigation, and prepare to take action.

Prepare your brain for field work

1.   How do you tell different species apart?

Understanding and appreciating the diversity of life does not come from students’ knowing bits of information or classification categories about many different species; rather it comes from their ability to see in organisms the patterns of similarity and difference that permeate the living world. Benchmarks for Science Literacy (101)

Play Spot the Difference to train your eyes to closely observe plants and animals, and find characteristics that make them the same or different. Look at two leaves/animals at the same time. Compare their various characteristics. In one column list everything that is the same about the two leaves, or other organism you chose. In another column list everything that is different. Play competitively or as a team-building exercise.

Practice Looking Closely at a leaf, flower, leg, wing, shell, etc. to really hone your observation skills and see the pieces and parts you wouldn’t otherwise see. This detailed drawing activity will help you tell different species apart at your study site. Play as individuals or as a team.

Sharpen critical measurement skills with Size Matters. Use a ruler to measure things in cm. Alternatively find things to measure that are between 0-2, 2-5, 5-10, and greater than 10 cm long. These are the size choices on the Vital Signs datasheet. It is often useful to know how wide your thumb is, how long it is from your wrist to elbow, how far your knee is from the ground, etc. You can use your thumb, forearm, and leg to make a quick estimate of size in the field.

2.   How do you prove that you find or don’t find the species you are looking for?

More imagination and inventiveness are involved in scientific inquiry than many people realize, yet sooner or later strict logic and empirical evidence must have their day. Benchmarks for Science Literacy (9)

Learn why it’s important that you support what you say with good solid written and visual evidence to support your claims. Use Here Banana! to get in the groove of looking carefully for something, making a claim that you found it or did not find it, and supporting that claim with solid, bullet-proof evidence. Plan and carry out a short, sweet investigation to determine whether or not a “species” is in an “ecosystem” or not. Figure out for yourself the importance of careful observations skills.

Use Prove It! to practice using words and photos to craft solid evidence statements that will help you convince the Vital Signs community that you found or did not find the species you are looking for. State things that you believe to be true, and things that you believe to be not true. Practice supporting these claims with written and photo evidence. Move from simple everyday statements to more complicated statements about species.

 

Get all the pieces and parts you need for the field

Download and print from the Vital Signs website the tools you will need to guide and support your fieldwork:

• Species & Habitat Survey datasheets
• Species identification cards
• Sampling methods
• Team protocols
• Equipment lists

You may also need permission slips, chaperones, first aid kits….

 

Investigate!

1.   Collect data using the sampling method you chose while setting up your investigation.

2.   Record your species observation and habitat data on the Vital Signs Species & Habitat Survey appropriate for the freshwater, coastal, or upland ecosystem you are studying.

3.   Before you leave the field, check to make sure that you have all of the written and photo evidence you need, and have filled out all of the required fields on the datasheet. Check to make sure that you have all of the equipment you brought with you.

 

Enter your data online in the Vital Signs database!

How can I make sure the observations I publish online are complete and rigorous?

1.   Go to the Vital Signs website

2.   Log in using team names and passwords.

3.   Go to your team’s My Vital Signs page.

4.   Edit/finish your investigation in the Unfinished Observations box.

5.   Carefully transfer your data from your paper datasheet to the Vital Signs online data entry form.

6.   Have your data quality checked. Ask a classmate to use the Vital Signs Quality Check Form to check your data for completeness, accuracy, and appropriateness.

7.   Have your data reviewed by a peer. Ask a classmate to use the Vital Signs Peer Review Form to review your data before you publish them publicly on the Vital Signs website. Make corrections as necessary. This is the very best way to make sure that your very best work is available for the Vital Signs community to use.

8.   Publish your high quality data!

9.   Your data will show up immediately on the Vital Signs homepage and in the Explore Data section.

Organize and make meaning of your data

Where are the species observations and biodiversity data I need? What do they mean? How can I use them to answer my research question?

1.   Go to the Vital Signs website

2.   Use Organize to Analyze to find the data you need on the Vital Signs website, and to organize it in a way that makes it simple and straightforward to extract meaning from. This is a critical step in the inquiry process that is often overlooked.

• Use a T-chart to organize the biodiversity data.
• Use a Venn Diagram to organize the species data you need to answer your research question.

3.   Return to your online Science Notebook to reflect on and conclude your investigation:

• Reflect on your investigation. Think about what you’ve done so far. Do you have enough information to know whether biodiversity changes or stays the same throughout your watershed? What data do you wish you had? What would you do differently next time? What have you figured out so far? What new ideas and questions do you have?
• Wrap up your investigation. Does biodiversity change or stay the same throughout your watershed? Why? Why not? Make a claim. Support your claim with evidence from your field notes, T-chart, and Venn Diagrams.

Student Action

Students select a town in their watershed that they would like to investigate. Instead of conducting the investigation themselves, they create a video, newspaper article, or persuasive letter asking students or citizen scientists in that town to do a similar biodiversity study and share their data online using Vital Signs. Students post their projects to the Vital Signs Project Bank and send the link to the school, town office, or citizen science group in the town of interest.

How do I convince someone to do something I’d like them to do?

Use Persuade and Motivate to guide the creation of your project. Persuasive writing may be something that you are unfamiliar with or unpracticed at, but we all have personal experiences where we tried to convince someone to do something of mutual benefit. This persuasive writing guide will help build on this personal experience to formulate the message you want to put in your video, newspaper article, or letter.

How do I share my project online?

Post documents and multimedia projects to the Vital Signs Project Bank:

1.   Go to the Vital Signs website

2.   Log in using your team name and password

3.   Go to your team’s My Vital Signs page

Note: Alternatively you may go directly to the Project Bank

4.   “Add a new project” in your Projects History box

5.   Follow the instructions appropriate to the type of project you are adding

6.   Tell the object of your persuasion where to find it! Tell everyone you know where to find it. Send your project’s URL far and wide!

 

 

NOAA and other resources

Vital Signs Website

• www.vitalsignsme.org

Vital Signs Datasheets:

• Coastal Species & Habitat Survey (pdf)
• Freshwater Species & Habitat Survey (pdf)
• Upland Species & Habitat Survey (pdf)
• More datasheets available at www.vitalsignsme.org

Invasive Species

• http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/classroom/lessons/06_coastal_alien.pdf
• http://www.oar.noaa.gov/oceans/t_invasivespecies.html

Ecosystem Monitoring

• http://limpetsmonitoring.org/docs/SB_Handbook.pdf

Biodiversity

• http://www.estuaries.gov/estuaries101/Doc/PDF/LS3_BiodiversityEstuary.pdf
• http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/08/g68/noaabiodiversity.html
• http://www.biodiversityhotspots.org/xp/Hotspots/Pages/default.aspx

Water Quality

• http://apps.dataintheclassroom.org/water-quality/
• http://www.estuaries.gov/estuaries101/Doc/PDF/PS1_ChemistryEstuary.pdf
• http://www.estuaries.gov/estuaries101/Doc/PDF/PS2_DO.pdf