Digital Unit Plan – Goals, Objectives and Assessments

Unit Title: Earth, Ecosystems, & Human Activity Name: Emily Bertrand, Henry Chi, Erin
Crowley

Content Area: Foundational Level Grade Level: 6-8

Next Generation Science Standards/Performance Expectations

MS-LS2-1.
Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for the effects of resource availability on organisms and populations of
organisms in an ecosystem
MS-LS2-2.
Construct an explanation that predicts patterns of interactions among organisms across multiple ecosystems.
MS-ESS2-2.
Construct an explanation based on evidence for how geoscience processes have changed Earth's surface at varying
time and spatial scales.
MS-ESS2-3.
Analyze and interpret data on the distribution of fossils and rocks, continental shapes, and seafloor structures to
provide evidence of the past plate motions.
MS-ESS3-1.
Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence for how the uneven distributions of Earth's mineral, energy, and
groundwater resources are the result of past and current geoscience processes.

Anchoring Activity

What are factors in the environment that might cause a population to decline?

Unit Situation: You are a park ranger at Yosemite National Park, you notice that the Wolverine population is slowly declining.
You want to help but are unsure how to approach the situation. You look to reference previous cases to help you understand
what you can do to help. Grizzly bears have had similar path to where the Wolverine is heading, so you research the grizzly
bear’s history, resources, etc. With the information learned about the grizzly bear elimination in CA, you create a plan to help
save the Wolverines.

Driving Question of the Unit

Driving Question: Why are there no Grizzly bears in CA?

Unit Goals---Describe what you want students to be able to do. For example, I wanted my students to be able to know
when to use the epistemic practices when I gave them verbal or visual cues. Students will need to be able to recognize
science even if it is not in the verbal form. See the article “Outside the Pipeline: Reimagining Science Education for
Nonscientists. A summary of the article is in the appendix of this unit plan template.
What do you want students to understand?
We want students to understand the effects of using resources and that everything is finite in this world. Students will
understand how items and resources they use every day, such as water, food, etc., are used on a national basis and how our
levels of use will affect people’s ability to use them in the future. Looking at student’s personal resources won’t be enough.
Students will look at resources such as land, trees, etc., and see how it has affected animals that had used it prior.

What do you want them to be able to do?

Inquire, Model, Analyze, Argue

Why is this important for students to learn?

Students will understand how their own individual actions and use of resources impact their community; understanding of
cause and effect relationships of real-world problems.

What scientific community goals can you connect the answers to the above questions to?
Environment awareness, cause and effect relationships, conservation efforts, current community issues

Lesson 1 – [Pangea, Plate Tectonics, Fossils]

Student Learning Objective: Acceptable Evidence – Formative and/or Summative

Using and interpreting maps of Earth’s plate movement and Assessment:
fossil data, students will construct an initial argument of how Initial CER including some form of drawing of Pangea with
ancestors of grizzly bears migrated to US/California. original bear locations versus current continent locations
(showing movement)

Model Regarding Plate Tectonics

Lesson 2 – [Interactions among organisms]

Student Learning Objective: Acceptable Evidence – Formative and/or Summative

Using and interpreting data from Yosemite National Park,
students shall work in groups to identify patterns of interaction
among animals such as the pronghorn, elk, cutthroat trout, bear,
bobcat and deer mouse and find casual relationships within
ecosystems such as competition, predation, and mutualism.
Assessment:
Students add to their CER, including the relationships
grizzly bears have had with other organisms and how those
interactions may have had an affect on their resource
availability. Students include a food web showing the
correct relationships between the species listed in the
objective. Students express understanding that resource
availability can affect interactions between organisms.

Lesson 3 – [Ecosystems/Ecosystem Interactions]

Student Learning Objective: Acceptable Evidence – Formative and/or Summative

Students will analyze and interpret data (graphs and charts)
from Yosemite National Park of a endangered species’ change
of population over time and will determine the relationships
between the size of population, resource availability and
survival of organisms. Students will be able to explain that
resources are finite and over consumption can lead to
population decline.
Assessment:
Students add to their CER how changes in the availability of
resources -such as less food from competition with other
organisms- relates to the population growth of grizzly bears.
Students can express the cause and effect relationships
between a food resource, growth of individual organisms,
and population size of a species. For example: Cause and
effect relationship if one species from the grizzly bear’s
food web were to disappear.

To illustrate the effects of prey camouflage, students will be

conducting a predator/prey lab using skittles and colored
paper.

Lesson 4 - [Human Activity and How We Use Energy]

Student Learning Objective:
Students will analyze history events of human use of resources
such as energy and minerals. Students will analyze historical
energy events and determine the United States current energy
use. Students will analyze the historical events of gold mining
to determine consequences to the natural environment.
Students can explain how depletion of a resource by humans
changes how much and where more of that resource can be
found.
Acceptable Evidence – Formative and/or Summative
Assessment:
Through jigsaw reading, students will create a concept map
showing our energy use within the three categories of
“home, industry, and transportation.” They will also write a
one sentence summary of the most important energy statistic
learned.
Students will be assigned an energy source and will
complete an argument paragraph using evidence found
through energy history investigations. The paragraph will
argue a claim about why the history of their assigned energy
is important to understand. Students with similar energy
sources can collaborate on ideas, but everyone writes their
paragraph individually.

Students will add to their CER how human depletion of gold

during the gold rush drove miners to California where they
encroached on grizzly bear habitat and used grizzly bears as
a resource. Students can reason and state examples of how
the use of resources by humans decreases the amount of
these resource available and changes overall distribution of
resource on Earth.

Lesson 5 - [What Is Your Impact?]

Student Learning Objective: Acceptable Evidence – Formative and/or Summative

Using all the information collected throughout the unit, Assessment:
students will be able to explain why there are no more grizzly Final CER/Model (CER from initial lesson is edited with
bears in CA, and how this data can be used to save the black more accurate evidence & Model is finalized)
bears.

Unit Summative Assessment

Google docs Final Unit Exam (Multiple Choice and short answer)
Presentation project based on CER

Useful Websites:

https://youtu.be/IgQDinouNmY - I really hate this guys voice, but the video does a good job of explaining the bears
migration patterns. (just a thought)

https://visityellowstonenationalparkyall.weebly.com/yellowstones-wildlife.html

https://www.nps.gov/yose/learn/nature/animals.htm

https://betterlesson.com/lesson/632584/energy-history?from=cc_lesson (Energy Lesson)

Threatened animals https://www.nps.gov/yose/learn/nature/threatened-mammals.htm

https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2016/10/us-fish-and-wildlife-service-reconsider-wolverine-esa-protections More
wolverine stuff