Download Forest Ecology - Hobcaw Barony

Forest Ecology
HOBCAW BARONY
THE BELLE W. BARUCH FOUNDATION
Lesson Description
After students have explored the exhibits in the Hobcaw Barony Discovery Center, they will be led in
completing a simple dichotomous key of a variety of animals in the forest. Students will then participate
in a sorting game where they will answer questions based on characteristics until they figure out what
animal they are. Once students are comfortable with how animals are different, the behaviors of
animals in winter will be discussed. Students will be given animal cards where they will act out how their
particular animal survives in winter. If there’s time, a short nature hike through the longleaf pine forest
will allow the students to immerse themselves in wildlife habitat as they look for animals hanging around
in the winter.
SC State Standards covered (2nd Grade)
Standards
Standard 2-1: The student will demonstrate an understanding of scientific inquiry, including the
processes, skills, and mathematical thinking necessary to conduct a simple scientific investigation.
Standard 2-2: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the characteristics of
organisms. (Life Science)
Indicators
2-1.3 Represent and communicate simple data and explanations through drawings, tables,
pictographs, bar graphs, and oral and written language.
2-1.5 Use appropriate safety procedures when conducting investigations.
2-2.1 Recall the basic needs of animals (including air, water, food, and shelter) for energy,
growth, and protection.
2-2.2 Classify animals (including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, fish, and insects) according
to their physical characteristics.
2-2.4 Summarize the interdependence between animals and plants as sources of food and shelter.
2-2.5 Illustrate the various life cycles of animals (including birth and the stages of development).
Forest Ecology
HOBCAW BARONY
THE BELLE W. BARUCH FOUNDATION
SC State Standards covered (4th Grade)
Standards
Standard 4-1: The student will demonstrate an understanding of scientific inquiry, including the
processes, skills, and mathematical thinking necessary to conduct a simple scientific investigation.
Standard 4-2: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the characteristics and
patterns of behavior that allow organisms to survive in their own distinct environments. (Life
Science)
Indicators
4-1.7 Use appropriate safety procedures when conducting investigations.
4-2.1 Classify organisms into major groups (including plants or animals, flowering or nonflowering
plants, and vertebrates [fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals] or invertebrates)
according to their physical characteristics.
4-2.2 Explain how the characteristics of distinct environments (including swamps, rivers and
streams, tropical rain forests, deserts, and the polar regions) influence the variety of organisms
in each.
4-2.3 Explain how humans and other animals use their senses and sensory organs to detect signals
from the environment and how their behaviors are influenced by these signals.
4-2.5 Explain how an organism’s patterns of behavior are related to its environment (including the
kinds and the number of other organisms present, the availability of food and other resources,
and the physical characteristics of the environment).
4-2.6 Explain how organisms cause changes in their environment.
Focus Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
How are animals different?
How do you use a dichotomous key?
What do all animals need to survive?
Do animals change survival techniques with changing seasons?
How do scientists group animals?
Forest Ecology
HOBCAW BARONY
THE BELLE W. BARUCH FOUNDATION
Teachers need to provide:


Pencils
Dichotomous key sheets
o See Attachment at end
o One copy per student
o Look for the
Instructor will provide:


Animal Cutouts
Animal “Act Out” cards
Lesson Plan
Part One: Introduction and Dichotomous Key
Upon entry, students will observe and fill in a brief sheet about animal behavior in winter. The
instructor will lead a discussion concerning how animals are different. The term dichotomous key will be
introduced, and a general dichotomous key will be completed by the students with the instructor’s help.
Part Two: Grouping animals
Each student will then receive a cutout of a particular animal and be encouraged to think about their
animal’s behavior during different times of the year and “become” that animal. The instructor will read a
series of questions while the students determine which animal they have through the descriptions given
just as scientists group animals by their appearance and behavior. Once the students understand how
animals are different, the discussion will move to how animals behave when it’s wintertime (migration,
hibernations, etc.).
Part Three: Acting Out Activity
Students will work in pairs or groups of three with another guessing game. Each group will be assigned a
group of animals to “Act Out”. They will have a few moments to prepare and then will show the rest of
the class how their animal survives the winter while the other groups guess which animal it is and how it
survives.
Part Four: Wintertime Wildlife Walk
If time, the students will go for a short nature hike lead by the instructor to look for animals and animal
sign.
Reflection: Choose your favorite animal that lives where it’s wintertime. How would you survive the
winter? Draw a picture of yourself and tell what you would do.
-ORHumans are animals too! What do you do differently in wintertime to stay healthy and warm?
Forest Ecology
HOBCAW BARONY
THE BELLE W. BARUCH FOUNDATION
Teacher Preparation:
Hibernation is a time when animals ‘sleep’ through cold weather. This sleep is not like human sleep where loud noises
can wake you up. With true hibernation, the animal can be moved around or touched and not know it. [Don’t you do
this, though. Some animals only go into a torpor or temporary sleep time and can wake up quickly. Like BEARS.] We
are going to use the word 'sleep' sometimes but hibernation is different from regular sleep. With normal sleep, the
animal moves a little, has an active brain, and can wake up very quickly. With true hibernation, the animal appears
dead. There is no movement and it takes a long time for it to wake up enough to even walk around.
Hibernation is the way that animals adapt to the climate and land around them. Animals must be able to live
through extreme cold or they’ll die. Animals hibernate—or deep sleep—to escape that cold. They also do this due to
the lack of food supply during the winter.
.
When an animal begins to hibernate, its body temperature drops very low so that it almost matches the
temperature outside. Human temperature is normally about 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. If you were a hibernator and
it was 30 degrees outside, your body temperature would drop from 98.6 down to about 30-40 degrees.
The animal’s heartbeat and breathing slow down, too. This is when that stored fat that the animal packed on in the
fall comes in to play.
Cold-blooded hibernators begin hibernation when the cold weather causes their body temperatures to drop. Coldblooded animals do not have a body temperature like humans do. Our temperature stays about 98.6 degrees
Fahrenheit all the time. Cold-blooded animal temperatures stay the same as the air temperature around them. If it
is 50 degrees outside, the lizard is around 50 degrees. If it is 110 outside, then they are about 110, too. Since we
already said that hibernators adapt to their environments, you can see why these animals would try to escape
extreme cold AND heat by hibernating. Hibernation is sleeping through cold, and estivation is sleeping through
heat. Cold-blooded hibernators will wake up when the air outside warms or cools enough for them to be
comfortable.
*Excerpted from http://library.thinkquest.org
Migration is a fascinating aspect of animal ecology, and it inspires us whether we are studying salmon migrating
thousands of miles back to their spawning grounds, huge flocks of sandhill cranes migrating across the northern
skies, or caribou crossing rivers in the fall.
Animals that live in habitats that are difficult to survive in year round, must find a way to cope with the difficult
time of year. Other than hibernation, migration is another option for animals that can move across long distances.
They survive by leaving the area for part of the year or part of their life, and move to habitats that are more
hospitable.
The most common reason to migrate is to take advantage of food, shelter, and water that vary with seasons, or life
stage. The availability of food and water can change throughout the year. For instance, the lack of insects and
leaves in the winter means there is less food to eat. Some environments have a rainy and a dry season that are
very different. Temperatures change between the seasons, some areas getting very cold or very hot which can be
hard on some species. Sometimes it is not about getting food but about staying safe. Deep snow may make animals
easier to catch by predators, or animals may go to special breeding grounds to keep their young safe when they are
especially vulnerable.
*Excerpted from www.nps.gov
Forest Ecology
HOBCAW BARONY
THE BELLE W. BARUCH FOUNDATION
FOREST ECOLOGY VOCABULARY LIST
Forest: A dense growth of trees and underbrush covering a large tract
Ecosystem: A community of living and non-living things that work together
Habitat: an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a particular species of animal, plant or
other type of organism
Longleaf pine: see Background page
Classification: the assignment of organisms to groups within a system of categories distinguished by
structure, origin, etc.
Dichotomous key: A dichotomous key is a tool that allows the user to determine the identity of items in
the natural world, such as trees, wildflowers, mammals, reptiles, rocks, and fish
Migration: the relatively long-distance movement of individuals, usually on a seasonal basis
Hibernation: a state of inactivity and metabolic depression in animals, characterized by lower body
temperature, slower breathing, and/or lower metabolic rate
___________________
Vascular plants: Any of various plants, such as the ferns and seed-bearing plants, in which the phloem
transports sugar and the xylem transports water and salts
Endemic (native; indigenous): natural to or characteristic of a specific locality or region
Threatened species: any species (including animals, plants, fungi, etc.) which are vulnerable to
endangerment in the near future
Endangered species: a population of organisms which is facing a high risk of becoming extinct because it
is either few in numbers or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters
Conservation easement: a voluntary agreement that allows the landowner to limit the type or amount of
development on their property while retaining private ownership of the land
Conservation Reserve Program: voluntary program available to agricultural producers to help them use
environmentally sensitive land for conservation benefits
Forest Ecology
HOBCAW BARONY
THE BELLE W. BARUCH FOUNDATION
Background: America’s Longleaf Pine Forest
Longleaf Values
The majority of the forests present on Hobcaw Barony are longleaf pine dominated with mixed pine/hardwood and
bottomland hardwood forest sprinkled throughout. Longleaf pine forests were once incredibly vast. From the
Atlantic coastal plain of southeastern Virginia to the West Gulf Coastal Plain of Texas, these forests encompassed
more than 90 million acres of the North American landscape, and represented an extraordinary wealth and
diversity of cultural, ecological and socio-economic values. The tree itself, longleaf pine, literally sustained the
growth of America with an abundant source of timber and naval stores. It built homes, bridges, ships and railroads
and symbolized the bounty of natural resources that made the nation prosperous. Although longleaf pine remains a
highly valuable commodity in markets today, the value of these forests runs far deeper than economics and trees.
Cultural
Longleaf pines in the systems they support are woven into the cultural fabric of America. The open, fragrant,
“piney woods” are as much a part of southern culture and folklore as cornbread. Their beauty, diversity and humble
intimacies have been the inspiration for some of the country’s most honored writers, artists and naturalists. Long
before European colonization, generations of Native Americans sustained themselves with the natural and spiritual
riches these lands offered – lands that they revered through their customs and rituals. Throughout time, nature
lovers, sportsmen, photographers and outdoor enthusiasts have enjoyed an endless array of recreational and
aesthetic pursuits tied to the abundance and splendor of these systems.
Ecological
Today’s remnants of the longleaf pine forests are some of the most biologically diverse ecosystems outside of the
tropics. More than 140 species of vascular plants can be found in a 1,000 m2 area, with as many as 40 to 50
different plants species in one square meter. Nearly 900 endemic plant species – species found nowhere else – are
found in these systems across the Southeast U.S. One hundred and seventy of the 290 reptiles and amphibians
occurring in the Southeast are found in longleaf pine ecosystems, with 30 reptiles and amphibians that are
specialists to the longleaf system. Coupled with the extensive decline of this forest type, 29 species associated
with longleaf are federally listed as threatened or endangered.
Economic
Today, longleaf pine forests provide landowners and managers with a variety of economic opportunities. Private
sector markets include returns from high value solid wood products, quality pine straw, and higher real estate
values. Additionally, private and public funds are available for conservation easements and ecosystem services
including conservation banking payment or mitigation and premiums for wildlife hunting leases. From the public
sector, landowners also receive preference on many cost-share and landowner incentive programs including the
Conservation Reserve Program.
Response to Climate Change
Though much additional scientific study needs to be done to understand current and future effects due to climate
change, current information suggests that longleaf pine is the clear “winner” among all the southeastern pines
(including loblolly, shortleaf and slash) by a wide margin in terms of response to climate change. This is consistent
with the fact that longleaf and other favored species are more resistant to drought and high temperatures.
Longleaf also offers other ecological benefits, as compared to other tree species, such as reduced risk from
wildfires, most insects and diseases, and hurricane and wind-related events/storms.
*Excerpted from www.americaslongleaf.org