 Adirondack
Curriculum
Project - www.adkcurriculum.org 
NYS Content Area Standard
MST
2: Students will
access, generate, process, and transfer information using appropriate
technologies.
MST 6:
Students will understand the relationships and common themes that
connect mathematics, science, and technology and apply the themes to
these and other areas of learning.
|
Title: Seasons
of Change: A Plant Inventory
Challenge
Grade Level: MS or HS Technology Education
Author: Alta Jo Longware
Ausable Valley Central School
Email: alongware@avcsk12.org
|
Adirondack Curriculum Content Area
_X_ Natural History
___ Human History
___ Culture & the Arts
___ Government & Civics
___ Economy
___ Health, Recreation &
Life Skills |
Investigative Question or Issue: How does mapping help
humans understand the
physical changes in a living environment that can occur over time?
Challenge:
You
will work in teams of four to plan and create a visual illustration
that represents the variety of plant species, which are located at a
specific site.
You will be a site where you will conduct a small plot plant inventory.
At the site, you will measure and mark off a 1 meter by 1 meter square
plot. Within the plot will be a variety of plant species such as herbs,
shrubs and/or trees. You will have access to a GPS unit and a digital
camera as well as a variety of plant identification manuals. You will
need to identify all of the plants and estimate the quantities of each
within the plotted area.
To share your findings with others, you will create a visual that will
present your data in an easy to read format. The visual should fit an
11” x 17” piece of paper and be reproducible on a color copier. The
visual should include appropriate text, pictures and graphs that will
identity the characteristics, the common name, and quantity of each of
the plants found at your site.
The site survey will be conducted during one class set. Your team will
then have four additional class sets to identify each of the plants and
create a site visual illustration.
Note: This task can/will be repeated three additional times throughout
the school year to ultimately create a “Seasons of Change” map. Your
final map should enable others to see the same changes that you
observed at your site.
See Example of Student Display
|
Quality Standards:
Individual
site visual should be:
- completed by date established
- be under 11” x 17”
- easy to understand
- grammatically correct
- colorful, neat and aesthetically pleasing
Individual site content should provide accurate and
appropriate information:
- a title that identifies site location and date
of data collection
- color pictures or computer graphics of each
species identified
- a graph that accurately represents the
percentage of each of the species
The 4 seasons map visual should be
- completed by date established
- be under 24” x 36”
- easy to understand
- grammatically correct
- colorful, neat and aesthetically pleasing
The 4 seasons map content should provide accurate
and appropriate including:
- a title that reflects the data
- a GIS map that locates the site in GPS units
- each of the four individual site illustrations
in logical order
- a conclusion of results
|
Adapted for the Adirondack
Curriculum Project from
the work of Education By Design TM and Leading EDGE, LLC
©ACP 2002
|
Project supported in part by the New York
State Museum Biodiversity Research Institute