Learning Goals
Students will be able to formulate and refine an investigable question about a local environmental problem at a San Diego field site by identifying what counts as local evidence and what can be measured over time.
Students will be able to collect and document field data on a chosen environmental issue using repeatable observation methods, source notes, and site maps from weekly partner-site investigations.
Students will be able to analyze patterns in environmental data using Dear Data visuals, graphs, and coded representations to identify trends, anomalies, and possible causes.
Students will be able to model a local environmental trend with functions, regression, and rates of change to compare possible futures for the issue under different assumptions.
Students will be able to interpret limits, threshold values, and carrying-capacity ideas in the context of a local environmental system to explain when change may level off, fail, or become unsustainable.
Students will be able to calculate and explain accumulated change and affected area using derivatives and integrals connected to environmental measurements such as spread, loss, coverage, or restoration.
Students will be able to evaluate and justify a practical community action by weighing evidence quality, tradeoffs, and likely measurable effects on the local environmental problem.
Students will be able to revise explanations and conclusions in response to critique, new evidence, and unexpected results from fieldwork or the Day of Action.
Products
Environmental Investigation Notebook with Calculus Data Story
Each student will maintain a research notebook that shows question development, field methods, raw notes, source logs, calculations, graphs, and personal analysis of the chosen environmental issue. The notebook will include QR-linked digital pages or inserts that connect the student’s evidence to the final team project.
Framed Sci-Fi Environmental Solution Exhibit with QR-Linked Public Action Board
Each three-person team will produce a final framed dystopian-future visual, a public-facing action board or poster set, and a formal investigation presentation that synthesizes the team’s evidence, calculus models, conclusions, limitations, and Day of Action results. The exhibit must show how individual evidence shaped the team’s claim and what measurable difference the chosen action made or could make.
No rubric has been generated yet.