Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 1, Invasive Species (7th-8th)
What a great first day! We took time to introduce ourselves to our classmates to create a welcoming community. We will be doing a lot of group work, something that happens in careers in ecology and environmental biology! It makes it much easier to work together when we know things about each other. We went over the course objectives that will guide us through our week. Today we dove right in, defining invasive species and what makes them different from native and non-native species. The students worked in groups to come up with their own definitions, taking what they already knew about the topic.
Then, to put the ideas into practice, we modeled invasive species using Carolina EcoKits®: Invasive Species. Students were able to simulate changes in an ecosystem inhabited by predators with different methods of predation and prey species. They were able to determine how native and invasive species compete for resources in this way. The class then worked in pairs to estimate population size, density, and diversity within a habitat. They utilized techniques used in fieldwork for gathering data, such as random sampling for an accurate representation of a population. We then discussed our findings as a class. We learned how important it is to take good notes of what we learned to ensure we are doing good science.
The class also had a sneak peek into our lesson for Friday, starting a modeling experiment to determine human impact. More updates on this to come! Following this, we had our first encounter with a scientific review article “Invasive species drive cross-ecosystem effects worldwide” (Peller and Altermatt, 2024). This was definitely a challenge for the students! We walked through the paper abstract together and discussed one of the figures. They will learn more about how to read a scientific paper on Thursday.
Finally, we created our own awareness campaigns to inform the general public about the threat of invasive species. All of the ways the students came up with were very creative. The students learned how important it is to know your target audience when communicating science.
Questions to ask your student:
- What is the difference between native, non-native, and invasive species?
- What are some weird ways we have fought invasive species? (video link for a refresher)
- How do models help show how invasive species impact an environment?
Well, that was a packed day! I can’t wait to continue with a fun tree activity and a lesson on nutrient cycling tomorrow.
Have a wonderful evening!
Grace Harvey