Learning Goals
Students will be able to analyze ecological relationships in a local or regional ecosystem to explain how predation, parasitism, commensalism, mutualism, and competition influence ecosystem stability.
Students will be able to use food webs and energy-pyramid models to explain how disruptions to trophic levels affect the flow of energy and the stability of ecosystems.
Students will be able to explain the significance of the carbon cycle and nitrogen cycle to ecosystem stability and analyze the consequences of disrupting these cycles.
Students will be able to evaluate how environmental change, including human activity, affects biodiversity and how biodiversity loss or recovery changes ecosystem stability.
Students will be able to justify a position on whether a selected conservation strategy should be adopted using credible evidence from scientific and informational sources.
Students will be able to defend a science-based recommendation for protecting an endangered species by addressing counterarguments and limitations fairly.
Products
Endangered Species Evidence Brief with CER Argument
Each student writes an evidence brief that takes a clear position on a conservation action for the selected species or ecosystem. The brief includes source credibility analysis, a claim, sub-claims, CER reasoning, citations, and a fair counterargument with rebuttal.
Public Ecosystem Defense Symposium with Collaborative Policy Panel
Teams deliver a public defense of their conservation recommendation through a panel, debate, or symposium format supported by each member’s individual research. The team synthesizes the strongest evidence, compares perspectives, responds to live questions, and presents a shared call to action.
No rubric has been generated yet.