Inquiry Journals/Groups

Inquiry Journals or Essays/Groups Directions: Use the following questions (or make up one of your own) to write an analysis of the story we are reading in class. Please consider details from the story, your own experience, or other works of literature in developing your paragraphs. Remember to have topic sentences in each paragraph. Your thesis statement should be in the first paragraph of your essay.

Overall Theme: Ecology 1. What are the principal causes of a species becoming endangered?

2. How do life-forms adapt to their habitats?

3. Poor countries often do not have the same controls on pollution that exist in more affluent countries. What is more important, a decent standard of living or a clean environment?

4. Is it possible to maintain our current level of industrialization if we reduce pollution to a level that does not endanger the environment?

5. Investigate about specialists in the field of ecology.

Protecting Wildlife

1. Explore an environmental issue that affects our community.

2. Analyze causes of environmental problems.

3. Complete a chart on wildlife and habitats.

4. Humans can pose a threat to wildlife.

5. Wildlife can be preserved and protected by people.

6. How are some animals and their habitat being invaded and destroyed?

7. How can the needs of humans threaten the survival of wildlife and its habitats?

8. How are the needs of wildlife and the needs of humans being balanced through reserves and national parks?

9. How can you help protect wildlife?

10. Habitat destruction may be through pollution, hunting, and farming. Natural disasters may also affect human and wildlife habitat. Investigate the different types of natural disasters and the toll they take on/change humans and wildlife habitat. Create a chart or use illustrations, along with written expressions.

11. Why is a rain forest sometimes referred to as “a desert covered with trees?”

12. What are PCB’s? Why are they a threat to the environment?

13. What problems face the Florida Everglades? 14. What are the different facets of ecology? Is ecology concerned with just the environment? Or is ecology concerned with only the preservation of animals?

15. Investigate ways you can live environmentally responsible life.

16. Investigate about recycling, organic farming, selective logging, avoiding products with too much packaging, etc.

17. Write a persuasive essay to an editor discussing environmental issues that affect our community.

18. How does this story add to your knowledge about Ecology? Add items to the Concept/Question Board.

The Most Beautiful Roof in the World

1. The rain forest is a diverse and ever-changing world where many species of animals live.

2. The removal of animals from the ecology of the rain forest can cause its destruction.

3. Explore the number and types of organisms of the rain forest. Pick a particular rain forest in the world. What are the resources available (light, water, etc.) that support these organisms? Create a chart and/or illustrate the various populations of organisms that live in the rain forest. What role do these organisms play in the world? Do different organisms play a similar ecological role in other rain forests?

4. Design a food chain in a particular rain forest in the world. Try to have interconnecting food chains to form food webs.

5. Why did Meg as a child admire Rachel Carson and Harriet Tubman?

6. What is an ant garden?

7. Why is Meg excited to find a tree salamander?

8. How does reading The Most Beautiful Roof in the World add to your appreciation of this destruction? Was the forest canopy more complex than you expected it to be?

9. Examine characteristics of a rain forest.

10. Evaluate the dietary needs of wildlife.

Alejandro’s Gift

1. The desert, often thought of as a lifeless region, is home to numerous species of wildlife. 2. Humans and animals often exist in a mutually beneficial relationship.

3. What are the various types of wildlife that thrive in deserts? Chose a particular desert from our world. Research the types of wildlife that live there.

4. Refer to the illustrations in Alejandro’s Gift. Create a poster identifying the types of organisms that live in the desert and the resources available to help support them.

5. How is the harsh climate of the desert present problems to the animals and people who live there?

6. How did A Alejandro help the animals of the desert find water?

7. Investigate the problems of a desert. Chose one and write about a specific problem of the people and the animals of the desert.

8. What is a desert?

9. Why was Alejandro lonely?

10. What was Alejandro’s gift and to whom did he give it?

11. What was flawed about the 1st watering hole Alejandro dug?

12. Compare the way Alejandro interacts with nature with the way Meg interacts with nature in The Most Beautiful Roof in the World. In what ways are their experiences in nature the same? In what ways are they different?

13. Do you think what Alejandro did would make a good addition to how people can help the environment? What do you think the author of Protecting Wildlife would think of Alejandro’s gift?

14. Think about a time you did something that benefited the environment. Write about it. How did it make you feel to do something good for nature? What were the results of your actions? How might things have been different had you never taken your actions?

15. Complete a web to organize information about deserts.

16. Investigate the different societies that spend their time protecting the environment. a. local offices of the Environmental Protection Agency b. Audubon Society c. Nature Conservancy d. Sierra Club e. Wilderness Society f. museums of natural science g. zoos or park systems h. high school or university departments of science, ecology, biology, or natural resources

17. How does this story add to your knowledge about Ecology? Add items to the Concept/Question Board. A Natural Force

1. Certain types of fires are actually beneficial to a forest ecosystem.

2. Humans might do more harm than good by intervening during a forest fire.

3. What are the benefits of fires to the plant and tree life of forests?

4. What are some misconceptions about forest fires?

5. In what ways are fires helpful to plant and animal species?

6. List the positive and negative effects of forest fires.

7. Research more about fire scars on trees.

8. Investigate how forest fires help renew forests. Make a chart of the benefits of forest fires.

9. Investigate plant species and make plant rubbings. Discuss the plant- scientific name, habitat, growth, etc.

10. What does the word ecopyrology mean?

11. Why is lodgepole pine more resistant to fire than spruce or fir trees?

12. Why are predatory birds attracted to the smoke of forest fires?

13. How can a forest fire be good even though they destroy some of the environment?

14. Select a plant (tree, shrub, or flower) whose habitat is a forest. What environmental conditions does the plant need to thrive? How does it reproduce? What animals eat it? Would it survive a forest fire?

Saving the Peregrine Falcon

1. Peregrine falcons that ingest DDT produce eggs too delicate to survive incubation.

2. Skilled and dedicated scientists have found a way to save the peregrine falcon from extinction.

3. What are the efforts of scientists to save the peregrine falcon from extinction?

4. How have the scientists helped save the peregrine falcon from extinction?

5. What happens to birds when they ingest dangerous chemicals?

6. How have scientists help peregrine falcon eggs to hatch at the hatching centers? 7. Investigate “The Endangered Species Act”. How is it designed to protest biodiversity?

8. How are tropical rain forests the most diverse places on Earth, in terms of their biodiversity?

9. How is biodiversity a part of our everyday lives?

10. What is the difference between a peregrine falcon and a hawk?

11. How exactly does DDT harm the peregrine falcon?

12. What does imprinting mean? How were peregrine falcon chicks tricked into imprinting on adult peregrine falcons?

13. In Alejandro’s Gift, you saw how Alejandro put the animals at ease by digging a 2nd water hole farther away from his house. Similarly, the people who tended to the chicks of peregrine falcons were careful not to let chicks see them too much. These peoples’ behavior suggests that saving the environment sometimes requires humility and selflessness. What do you think? How can humility and selflessness help save the environment?

14. Think about a time you helped an animal. How did it feel to nurture an animal? How was your experience similar to the one you just read about? How was it different?

15. Explore urban wildlife and write a poem about a peregrine falcon.

16. Research the sport of falconry. What kinds of birds are used? What prey do the birds hunt? Where did the sport originate? In what historical periods was it most popular? What social classes or groups participated in this activity? Is the sport still practiced anywhere today?

17. Investigate the other types of wildlife that live in urban settings.

The Day They Parachuted Cats on Borneo

1. Explore food webs.

2. Investigate about malaria.

3. The pesticide DDT upset the balance of an ecosystem, causing some distressing and surprising results.

4. What were the actions taken to solve the problem of malaria, which would have caused an outbreak of the plague?

5. How did DDT affect each of the species living on Borneo in 1969?

6. Why is DDT still being used in poor countries today?

7. What are scientists doing to make the use of DDT unnecessary? 8. How have scientists noticed how one change in an ecosystem affect all of the plants and animals in that ecosystem?

9. Make a 3-D poster or hanging mobile of a food chain or food web from the story, The Day They Parachuted Cats on Borneo. Use index cards with words or arrows to show the relationships and interdependence of the members.

10. Classify the animals in the selection, The Day They Parachuted Cats on Borneo, into 3+ families (insects, rodents, cats, etc.) Note the common characteristics of each group- body descriptions, how they move around, where they lived, what they ate, etc. Create a chart the provides information about the diversity, classifications, and characteristics of the animals in the play.

11. Why were cats flown into Borneo?

12. Why did people’s roofs fall down?

13. What does the author say is the moral of Borneo?

14. What other selections have you read in this unit that highlight the delicate balance that exists in environments?

15. Explore ways that scientists, farmers, and gardeners now use biological controls, such as disease- resistant crops, beneficial insects, biotechnology, genetic engineering, as ways to limit the use of harmful pesticides and herbicides.

16. Investigate alternative solutions to pests and disease problems.

17. Find out more about the cause, treatment, and prevention of a communicable disease.