CER Open Response Activity: Analyze & Evaluate Engineers & Biodiversity
- Google Slides™
- Internet Activities
Description
In this activity, students investigate how engineers solve problems to protect species. Students use their understanding of biodiversity to evaluate whether a design solution helps or harms ecosystems.
Three topics are provided, for student choice. This can be used as a jigsaw activity, or for independent learning. Students are also given the choice of the type of slide they provide their answers on. There are two levels of difficulty of the Claim - Evidence - Reasoning graphic organizer. One has sentence frames. The other has sentence stems and explicit instructions.
Students conduct research and answer questions, responding to prompts using words, highlighting, or adding images. Nonfiction reading texts are provided, and include videos and images. A slide for a teacher exemplar is also included. Student slides and instructions are translated into Spanish.
Students investigate one of three topics:
- how environmental engineers clean plastic in the ocean (in the great pacific garbage patch)
- how environmental engineers help fish to swim out of a dam into a river, using the Whooshh fish tunnel
- how environmental engineers help wildlife cross a highway, using a nature bridge
Students evaluate how humans impact ecosystems.
They describe the benefits of how engineers solve these problems. They use (not actual) data to use evidence in their open response.
Information is chunked, to make it easier for students to complete the assignments. Hyperlinks are included in the document, to the teacher example and nonfiction research texts.
