What do you think of when you think of bees? Bee stings? Honey? You probably don't think about how important bees are to global ecology, and you may not even be aware that bee populations have declined significantly over the past ten years. Why is this happening, what impact might it have on our future, and what can we do to prevent disaster?
Blueprint and Timeline
Driving Question:
How can the bee population crisis be used to demonstrate the interconnectedness of ecology?
Learning Objectives:
Skills:
How can the bee population crisis be used to demonstrate the interconnectedness of ecology?
Learning Objectives:
Skills:
- Creativity
- Videography
- Dissection and microscopy
- Collaboration
- Bio 2.1.1 Compare the flow of energy and cycling of matter (water, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen) through ecosystems relating the significance of each to maintaining the health and sustainability of an ecosystem.
- Bio 2.1.3 Explain various ways organisms interact with each other (including predation, competition, parasitism, mutualism) and with their environments resulting in stability within ecosystems.
- Bio 2.1.4 Explain why ecosystems can be relatively stable over hundreds or thousands of years, even though populations may fluctuate (emphasizing availability of food, availability of shelter, number of predators and disease).
Ecology Crash Courses
In order to better understand both ecology and Crash Course videos, you will watch and analyze a series of them. For each, you will complete a graphic organizer in which you record notes about the content of the video and the techniques it uses to teach effectively. A suggested schedule is provided, but you may adjust as needed, as long as all videos are completed by the final due date.
Pollination Lab
Bee Population Video Project
Hopefully by now you understand the importance of pollinators such as bees. If their populations are in danger, we are in danger. In order to attempt to save ourselves, however, we need to understand the cause of the problem. In the case of bee population decline, the cause is far from simple.
In this project, you will be assigned one of the major suspected causes of bee population decline. You will learn about the importance of bees to ecology, how your cause impacts bees, and what the potential impacts are if this trend is not reversed. Based on this, you will develop suggestions for what people can do to help remedy the situation.
You will then take all of these ideas and present them in an engaging and informative manner - through your very own Crash Course video!
At the end of the unit, your videos will be shown in class and posted on this website in order to reach an even wider audience.
In this project, you will be assigned one of the major suspected causes of bee population decline. You will learn about the importance of bees to ecology, how your cause impacts bees, and what the potential impacts are if this trend is not reversed. Based on this, you will develop suggestions for what people can do to help remedy the situation.
You will then take all of these ideas and present them in an engaging and informative manner - through your very own Crash Course video!
At the end of the unit, your videos will be shown in class and posted on this website in order to reach an even wider audience.