BY Sheeba Makhdoom

UNIT SUMMARY  In this unit, students explore biodiversity and various parts of local region where biodiversity is high. They discover how different species interact in a habitat and its importance to Ecosystem and maintaining higher orders of biodiversity is important to life on Earth. They learn about particular threats to biodiversity, worldwide, and how to control that in different regions and cultures. Through a project- based learning experience, in groups, and scientists living and working in this field, students develop acquired tools to address their concern for the future of the environment.

GRADE/LEVEL 9-10 (14-15)  TIME LINE This project started in 2 nd week of February and will be completed by 4 th week of February.

CURRICULUM FRAMING QUESTIONS ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS How do species become threatened or endangered? How does the disappearance of one species affect create an imbalance in the environment? What are some strategies that humans can adapt to control the current rate of extinction?

CURRICULLUM FRAMING QUESTIONS UNIT QUESTIONS Does one species loss or extinction cause Imbalance in whole ecosystem? Are there a number of conservation strategies that are taken or designed by different organizations to prevent the detoriation of a species.

CONTENT QUESTIONS Explain all of the species’ interactions within a given threatened ecosystem along with food web relationships and symbiotic pairings of that ecosystem. What is meant by fresh water biodiversity? How is imbalance created in it. Does excessive industrialization effects fresh water biodiversity?

► Predict how and explain how decline of one or more than one species from an ecosystem would have larger impact with reference to imbalance of the ecosystem.  Use pie charts and different graphs to show the rate of extinction of different species.comparison charts showing rate of extinction of different species of the same ecosystem can be used to explain imbalance at mega level.  Explain major threats to species survival and suggest possible solutions or remediation strategies to limit extinction rate throughout the world.

BENEFITS OF USING PROJECT BASED LEARNIG,ASSESMENTS AND CFCQ,S IN BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION Students use their writing skills to write about something important about diversity of living organism Students collaborate with peers to collect information about the threatened species. Throughout the project they will receive feedback on their work by check lists.

TROUGH THIS METHODOLOGY Students will be able to Experience writing about threatened species and use technology to improve their learning. Achieve self-assessment and self-direction skills. Will learn how to study a unit with project based learning Memorization may not be as adequate as meaningful learning becomes more about applying, communicating and supporting what one knows. Will determine the species near to extinct and fill inolve cognitive thinking.

My GOALS FOR THIS UNIT Students will Learn about different kinds of technology that will motivate students to complete their task Students will discover ways to inolve in more higher- order thinking students will learn to incorporate their results into graph and survey sheets. Students will be able to communicate with each other online and online groups where they can communicate with each other.

INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN Presentation of the topic Discussion Survey of different ecosystems Documentation of survey Designing of experiment Implementation of experiment Online tools Open discussion of the result of experiment Resurvey Wiki

PRESENTATION OF THE TOPIC Show different presentations covering all the contents questions and publications to give scientific awareness about the topic. Discuss all the features of the project along with all the activities they are going to do.

DISSCUSSION (4O minutes) Discuss all aspects of biodiversity conservation along with a presentation. Provide students with quiz questionnaire. Make groups in class and assign them to observe different ecosystems around them. At the end of the time evaluate students for that day by checklist.

SURVEY (4O MINUTES) Divide students into groups and allocate them different parts of ecosystem to take out survey. Give survey sheets for this purpose and before sending for survey give brief description about it. Ask students to observe animal and plant life of that ecosystem. Students participation in filling the survey form and gathering extra information will be checked by checklist.

STUDENTS BUSY IN SURVEY

Another group during survey

SURVEY OF FRESH WATER ECOSYSTEM(40 MINUTES)

POSITION OF POND

ANOTHER GRAPHIC SHOWING CONDITION OF POND

WRITTEN DESCRTION OF DETAILED SURVEY (40 Minutes) Ask students to write what they observed a day before by mentioning the animal and plant life over there and also the a biotic factors of that ecosystem By the time they complete work check their data by checklist.

VISIT TO ECOSYSTEMS WITH POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS(40Minutes) Group which observed fresh water ecosystem saw lots of waste in that ecosystem which has destroyed life in that pond system. They came up with a possible cheap strategy which could clean the fresh water pond system where life will flourish. By literature review they came to know that banana peel powder is effective in cleaning impurities in water. Another groups came to know that planting trees will be an effective strategy for conservation of terrestrial ecosystems

Solution to the problem for fresh water biodiversity conservation They designed an experiment and for that they dried many banana peels in sun light for few days till they got completely dry.

EXPERIMENT AS A POSSIIBLE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM(40min) Students grinded the dried banana peel into powder form After this they took some amount of the powder and put that into polluted fresh water as a possible solution to clear water to restore imbalance.

BANANA POWDER

STUDENT WITH BANANA POWDER

STUDENTS POURING BANANA POWDER

SURVEY OF FRESH WATER AFTER EXPERIMENTATION (40 minutes) Group of students observed fresh water ecosystem after few days and observed the changes and recorded them. Their data was checked by checklist.

POSSIBLE RESULT OF THEIR SOLUTION ►Water will get cleared which would be encouraging for the students. ►They will introduce few species in the clean water so they may reproduce and create a balanced ecosystem.

SOCIAL IMPACTS Engage students to find out effect of project of biodiversity conservation on society and provide awareness about threatened species.

ONLINE TOOLS ( 2 DAYS 40 MIN) Engage students in searching different search engines. And generate wiki to get comments about their research work. After completion check data by blog checklist

RESEARCH SOURCES techniques.com

OTHER RESOURCES Survey sheets Questionnaires Multimedia Notes Computer laboratory

THANKYOU FOR CONSERVING ME