Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 5, Invasive Species (7th-8th)
Dear parents of invasive species experts,
Today was all about “unintended consequences”. To round out the week, we had the most important lesson and discussion of all… are HUMANS invasive species? Possibly the MOST invasive species? What do we as a population do to unintentionally harm the world around us? We started with a brainstorm considering the good and bad ways humans interact with the environment. It was much easier to come up with some negative effects than the positives!
Then, we had to look into the history of humans. We looked at the paper THE MOST INVASIVE SPECIES OF ALL to take a look at human migration, and the key factors that enable us to thrive in a variety of ecosystems. After discussing the Tree of Life and human population dynamics, we reflected inward and calculated our Ecological Footprint and Electrical Energy Cost to see how our daily living utilizes different natural resources (ask your student their results and how they plan on reducing their ecological footprint!). A lot of students were surprised with how many earths humans would need if we all lived like them!
Following this, we finished up our plant study, observing how the compaction of soil alters a plant’s ability to grow and flourish. This directly relates to rock climbing or even walking over a patch of grass. Then the students were able to model the effects of deforestation of mangroves on the safety of a town by the water. Let’s just say, that without mangroves, there would be a LOT of destruction (ask your student why!). We rounded out the class talking about carrying capacity and the trajectory of human population growth. We calculated carrying capacities for specific populations and then discussed the biodiversity index. This was a good refresher for students to do math with paper and pencils! Check in with your students to see if this was a challenge for them. I think they were surprised at how quickly you can lose your math skills if you don’t use them every so often.
Before the end of class, students filled out some course evaluations and performed a self-assessment. This will help get their feedback on their experiences to help make the course better in the future!
Thank you to all the students who worked so hard and now have so much new knowledge. It was a pleasure working with this group. I hope they all have grown more aware of the world around them and will continue to admire all the biodiversity nature has to offer.
Well wishes,
Grace Harvey