Saving Pelicans using a STEM approach

This article is well written and completely describes and outlines an activity that would be found in middle school life sciences, in a unit about ecology. Included is a unit overview that p... See More

This article is well written and completely describes and outlines an activity that would be found in middle school life sciences, in a unit about ecology. Included is a unit overview that provides a guideline for the 6-Lessons used to develop the activities focusing on the American white pelican. Each lesson is fully described and provides diagrams, tables, and pictures to help integrate this activity into a teacher's curriculum. The activities consist of everything from doing research, using estimation, understanding food webs and species interactions, designing pelican nests, using GIS for chick location, role playing different special-interest groups, and a scoring rubric. This is a great activity. Although it takes about 6 class periods, the teacher must be aware that almost the entire unit over ecology can be included in this investigation/activity, making the length of this exploration worth the time involved.