Science

Unit Introduction

1. Global Warming

2. Air Quality

3. Post Assessment

4. Additional Resources
and
Optional Extensions

Ecology: Global Warming

Rachelle Brown
Teacher
Expo High School, Waterloo, Iowa

Subject Area: biology
Grade Level: high school level
Unit Length: four weeks

This unit was designed to be used with at-risk high school students and applies­ strategies from differentiated instruction to incorporate the many different learning styles found in an alternative classroom. The content, activities, and the products were chosen to challenge the thinking of the academically gifted students and engage the lower level students. The unit is a multiple approach to global warming designed to embrace the alternative students’ readiness and unique interests.

NSES: (National Science Education Standards) standards met in this curriculum:

Content Standard C:  Life Science:

C.4.5:  Human begins live within the world’s ecosystems.  Increasingly, humans modify ecosystems as a result of population growth, technology, and consumption.

Content Standard F:  Science in Personal and Social Perspectives:

F.2.1:  Populations grow or decline through the combined effects of births and deaths, and through emigration and immigration.

F.2.3:  Populations can reach limits to growth.  Carrying capacity is the maximum number of individuals that can be supported in a given environment.

F.3.2:  The earth does not have infinite resources; increasing human consumption places severe stress
on the natural processes that renew some resources, and it depletes those resources that cannot be renewed.

F.4.1:  Natural ecosystems provide an array of basic processes that affect humans.

F.4.2:  Materials from human societies affect both physical and chemical cycles of the earth.

F.4.3:  Many factors influence environmental quality.

Content Standard A:  Science as Inquiry:   

A.1.2:  Design and conduct scientific investigations.   

A.1.4:  Formulate and revise scientific explanations and models using logic and evidence.   

A.1.6:  Communicate and defend a scientific argument.

 

Iowa Department of Education:

This curriculum also meets with the Iowa Science Model Core Curriculum standards.  You will find the concepts for this curriculum in the section on “The Interdependence of Organisms”, pg 60.  The principles that underlie the standard are:  Humans modify ecosystems; human modification of ecosystems and habitat destruction threatens global stability.

http://www.iowa.gov/educate/content/view/780/791/