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![]() Students will understand the following:
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![]() For this lesson, you will need:
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![]() Younger students can choose less complex books. They might even try to work with any one of a number of children's books on the environment selected from your school library or local public library. |
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![]() You can evaluate your students on their writing assignments using the following three-point rubric:
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![]() Environmental Awareness Throughout the history of environmentalism, activists have used various strategies to further their causes. Bob Marshall championed government policies that would protect the wilderness by having 90 million acres declared public land. Rosalie Edge lead protest marches and attracted the media in her fight against the timber industry to preserve a rain forest in Olympia, Washington. Divide your class into groups, and have each group use the library and the Internet to research different strategies and tactics that environmental activists have employed. You might want to suggest simple examples such as creating and distributing pamphlets, holding rallies, and inviting media attention. When their research is complete, encourage each group to apply what it has learned to a community environmental project such as increasing the number of people who recycle, reclaiming an abandoned lot, or cleaning a riverbank or a roadside. Suggest that students brainstorm an environmental project before beginning. Students should then plan how they will achieve their goal and submit their strategies for your review before implementing them. When their projects are complete, ask each group to report to the class about how effective or ineffective its methods were; then lead a discussion about what students have learned from the process. What methods would they employ again, and which would they avoid? What proved difficult in swaying public opinion about their chosen environmental issue? Biography of a Contemporary Conservationist The conservation movement was started by a few individuals who were so inspired by nature that they made it their life's work to protect it. Ask your students to use local newspapers, libraries, and the Internet to research someone in their state or community who may be considered an environmental role model. Students should collect and organize background information about this person, prepare a set of interview questions for him or her, and then contact their role model to request an interview. Their questions should be broad, open-ended, and varied. They should include everything from "What events from your childhood, if any, contributed to your interest in conservation?" to "What conservation issues do you feel are most pressing and why?" When their interviews are complete, have your students compile the information they have gathered into a biographical article for a community or student newspaper. |
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![]() Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature Linda Lear. Henry Holt and Company, 1997. Lear shares the story of a courageous ecologist who Senator Ribicoff once described as having "all mankind in her debt." Rachel Carson challenged the culture of her time and shaped a powerful social movement that altered the course of history. This book illustrates how her ideals remain a driving force in this country today. John Muir: Apostle of Nature Thurman Wilkins. University of Oklahoma Press, 1995. This detailed biography offers an understanding of Muir's views on the preservation of wild places. His wilderness walking in America began his passion to create wilderness ethics and preservation. Wilkins's interesting biography allows the reader to get to know Muir and understand the movement he created. |
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![]() Audubon Online A well organized site with information for teachers and students and an interesting virtual tour. Backyard Conservation : The United States Department of Agriculture An extensive amount of information for grades K-12 on conservation. US Forest Service: Education Curricular resources as well as web links pertaining to conservation are available at this site. A Geography of Hope Conservation issues from the viewpoint of private land owners. |
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![]() Click on any of the vocabulary words below to hear them pronounced and used in a sentence.
Context: Conservation policies now help to protect natural wilderness from exploitation and destruction.
Context: Rachel Carson created the environmentalism movement and antipollution campaigns because of her discovery that the chemicals people used to control nature were actually very harmful to people.
Context: A farmer who uses an herbicide to kill weeds also risks the danger of contaminating his or her crops.
Context: Although the pesticide DDT was effective for killing insects, it proved harmful to other animals as well.
Context: It took a revolutionary thinker like John Muir to go against the common beliefs and insist that nature should be preserved and not used for monetary gain. |
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![]() This lesson plan may be used to address the academic standards listed below. These standards are drawn from Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K-12 Education: 2nd Edition and have been provided courtesy of theMid-continent Research for Education and Learningin Aurora, Colorado. Grade level: 6-8 Subject area: geography Standard: Understands the changes that occur in the meaning, use, distribution, and importance of resources. Benchmarks: Understands the reasons for conflicting viewpoints regarding how resources should be used. Grade level: 6-8, 9-12 Subject area: life science Standard: Understands how species depend on one another and on the environment for survival. Benchmarks: Benchmark 6-8: Knows relationships that exist among organisms in food chains and food webs.
Benchmark 9-12:
Benchmark 6-8:
Benchmark 6-8:
Benchmark 6-8:
Benchmark 9-12:
Benchmark 9-12:
Benchmark 9-12: |
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![]() Audrey Carangelo, freelance curriculum developer. |
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