ND Curriculum Initiative

Subject & Standards

Needs Assessment/Rational

Standard #4 of the North Dakota Career Development Standards and Benchmarks (2nd Draft) states: Students know the benefits of educational achievement related to career opportunities. The purpose of this unit is to answer the question that students sometimes pose to their teachers. “Why do we have to learn this?” Students need to see a relationship between the tasks that they are asked to complete and the real world. This unit will help students understand why they need to study plants. They will learn how skills that they learn while studying trees and plant diseases can be applied to a career involving plant science or in landscaping their own yard.

Understandings & Goals

Enduring Understanding: I want my students to understand that much of the technology that we use is not specific to science and can be used in many ways in their personal and professional lives. I want my students to understand that there are tools available that provide an organized way to identify just about any kind of object or organism. I want my students to understand the importance of species diversity in any kind of ecosystem regardless of its size. Goal(s): Students will gain an understanding of how a city forester could use the same tools and technologies that are used in the science classroom. Students will see a relationship between the study of plants and possible careers.

Questions Answered

Essential questions: How would you identify an organism in the park that you had never seen before? What would you need to know about trees in order to design the plantings for a new city park? Why would species diversity be an important consideration in developing a plan for the park? Objectives:  Students will demonstrate an understanding of how to use a dichotomous key by successfully identifying six trees in Lions Park. Students will demonstrate an understanding of how to use a GPS unit by marking waypoints at six specific locations. Students will demonstrate an understanding of how to navigate using a GPS unit by finding six waypoints marked by another group of students. Students will identify growth rate, size differences, and diseases and pathogens for 27 native North Dakota tree species by researching using a web browser. Students will discuss why species diversity is important in an ecosystem as they develop the rational for the design of the new city park.

Assessment

What quiz and test items (e.g. simple content-focused questions that require a single, best answer) will provide evidence of understanding? What academic prompts (e.g. open-ended questions or problems that require students to think critically and then to prepare a response / product / performance) will provide evidence of understanding? How will the new park be utilized? (esthetic value, recreation, etc.) What trees would be suitable for your purpose? What could potentially happen if all the trees in the park were one species? How could GPS data for the location of the new trees be helpful to the city forester? What performance tasks and projects (e.g. complex challenges that are authentic, mirror the real world and require a performance or product) will you include that will provide evidence of student understanding? 1. Pairs of students will mark waypoints at six tree locations using a handheld GPS unit. They will record the data (latitude and longitude) in a table in a PowerPoint presentation. 2. Students will trade GPS units with another group and navigate to the waypoints marked by that group. They will record the number on the tree at each waypoint and compare their data with the other group to see if they were correct. 3. Groups will correctly identity six pre-assigned trees using the dichotomous key for the North Dakota Tree Handbook and report their results to the teacher. They will be allowed to return to the tree if they are incorrect. 4. Students will research twenty-four types of native North Dakota tree for information such as shape, life span, and potential diseases. Information will be recorded in the data table produced in #1. 5. Groups will prepare a landscape map for a new city park in their PowerPoint presentation. Trees on the map will be color coded by species with links to areas in the data table. 6. Student groups will compose a rational for their design of the park and include it as a page in the Power Point presentation.

Instructional Strategies

The production of the plan for the new city park will require the students to synthesize what they actually observed in Lions Park with the information that they found while researching the trees. To develop the plan, group will have to discuss: How do we want the park to be used? What kind of trees do we want? Are trees that grow quickly and have a shorter life span better or the opposite? How many different kinds of trees do we need? Does the shape of the tree matter? What would happen if a disease occurred in a particular species? As students are formulating their plan, they have to be good communicators. Students will gain an understanding of the role that the city forester might play in the developmental plan for the park.