Priorities in teaching biology have changed a great deal since the early sixties when I was at high school. There were then only two kingdoms of life. Dissection, classification and anatomy of representative species was taught in terms of evolution. Since then, for good reason, biology has shifted focus either reductively to cell biology, biochemistry and genetics or holistically towards an understanding of species in terms of its ecosystem or environment. If one thinks of evolution as historical ecology, as indeed it is, then one can weave in the outlines of classification and a study of representative organisms into ecology, just as one previously did for evolution. Hence it is recommended here to use the part of the syllabus found in biological texts on vertebrate and invertebrate phyla/classes and fold them into ecology. The contemporary environmental importance of species diversity is reinforced in this way as a deeper understanding is gained of the inseparable unity between environment and life, which happens also to be the central tenet of the Gaia hypothesis. A study of evolution can be postponed to an integrated course in genetics, sexuality and evolution (see my YNHTI unit for 1996 in Genetics). Your course out-line for students may then look like the one that follows:
a) Course out line for integrating the unit into ecology and biodiversity
Ecology, Biodiversity and the Environment
Students will be working on an ecology project that will consist of two parts. The first will integrate the study of four organisms of your choice with the study of four different biomes. In the second, you will choose and research a particular environmental problem, examine it in terms of the Gaia hypothesis and propose a plan for solving the problem. The project will be written up as a mini-booklet using an analytical scoring rubric as guide for self-grading purposes. You will present your environmental problem and proposed solution to the whole class using a science fair type of presentation board. Deadlines for handing in different parts of the project will need to be met to receive full credit. Each week will include a video, a lecture, reading in the library, writing and drawing in class along with a problem solving test and vocabulary/concept quiz on Fridays. The outline of the project will correspond to the outline of the course.
Part I
1. Introduction to Ecology
2. Organism A and the ocean biome
3. Organism B and the wetland biome
4. Organism C and the desert or grassland biome
5. Organism D and the forest (taiga, deciduous, tropical) biome
Part II
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1. The Gaia Hypothesis: A way to solve the environmental problem . . . . . . .(name your problem you are interested in solving)
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2. Materials used in the class presentation.
To grade the written section of part l, the first of the analytical scoring rubrics (see below) will be used. The second analytical scoring rubric (also below) will be used. A supplementary folder will be used for keeping homework, quizzes and tests in. A grade point sheet will be kept stapled into the folder for recording and calculating grades or quality of work. In both section I and II of your project, it is important that organisms and a problem are chosen that are personally appealing.
b) Devise lesson plans that span a week of instruction.
For several years now I have taught classes that are designed to last a week. Monday is for introducing the theme or topic and includes review of key vocabulary, drawing, photographs, demonstrations, artifacts or a video. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, independent or small group work or library reading/research sessions are planned that teach the content of the class. Not uncommonly only two of these days are used for student self directed work since some weeks are interrupted by school events, holidays or there is a need to have an added lecture or class discussion on such topics as exemplary student work or unexpected problems or extensions needed for the smooth progression of the course. Since students are given assigned readings with questions for homework that can be difficult for them, they have the option of doing homework in class, in which case assigned class work becomes homework. Fridays are used for checking understanding of content. Questions are devised each week that can be used either as a test or as a basis for whole class discussion. They are generally higher order or open ended questions. For maximum effectiveness, it is best if they are based upon the information type questions that were used by students for homework in assigned areas of reading. Motivation for participation is enhanced when students are promised that these questions or selections of these questions will be used in the final examination. An example of ‘problem solving’, higher order or contextual questions are as follows:
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1. What kind of chapter headings would you expect to find in a book entitled: ‘Human Ecology’?
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2. When discussing birth control, a student says that every married couple has a right to as many children as they want. Why not?
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3. How could the rain forests be preserved and at the same time, cut down its trees?
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4. List some reasons why more is not done to save our natural environment.
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5. If the human species does not limit its population growth, list some things that will.
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6. An angry person says that government has no right to tell farmers how to farm. Give reasons why people might think government should get involved.
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7. Which kind of scientists would be best qualified to write a book entitled, ‘Death of Planet Earth’?
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8. What sort of legal information do you need to know before you go hunting or fishing?
To assist students in part II, four problems in the environment have been worked out in outline (see below).
These outlines are not intended to be
comprehensive
. They are merely a demonstration.of the feasibility of the principles discussed in this teaching unit. In the fourth column of the outlines a resource is suggested to assist students develop a detailed execution of a plan once the key issue has been identified in terms of a Gaia perspective. These outlines can be used as individual lesson plans for brainstorming with a whole class on how to solve a particular problem in the environment. It will greatly help if the following, “When you have a problem” sheet is given to all students in the class.
(figure available in print form)
(figure available in print form)
(figure available in print form)
(figure available in print form)
(figure available in print form)
