From Creeks to the Classroom: Hands-on Curriculum Units on the Web

Irene Salter
,
Archway School
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MyScienceBox is a website full of lessons, hands-on activities, assessments, and field trip ideas for science teachers. One of many lessons is "Gone Fishin" which allows participants to become the captain of a fishing boat, competing for fishery resources. Students discover that if they don't set fishing limits and monitor the fish population, soon there are no fish left in the ocean.
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Context

Audience:

middle school science

Skills and concepts that students must have mastered:

Students need a solid understanding of food webs and experience with monitoring population changes over time through tables and graphs.

How the activity is situated in the course:

This activity is part of an integrated curriculum dealing with ecology and environmental science.

National or State Education Standards addressed by this activity?:

"Gone Fishin" addresses the following California State Science Standards:
Grade 6 - Ecology (Life Sciences) 5. a, b, e.
Grade 6 - Resources 6. b.
All Grades - Investigation and Experimentation 7. c.

Goals

Content/concepts goals for this activity:


At the end of this lesson student should be able to:
  • observe population changes over time
  • identify common natural resources that humans impact
  • see how humans impact natural resources

Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity:


At the end of this lesson student should be able to:
  • see how available resources determine the number and type of organisms that an environment can support
  • devise strategies to manage natural resources

Other skills goals for this activity:


At the end of this lesson student should be able to:
  • graph changes in a population over time

Description of the activity/assignment

The management of the world's fisheries is a controversial current issue that involves individuals from many different viewpoints—fishermen and women, environmentalists, park rangers, politicians, and shoppers at the seafood counter. The issue is that many of the world's fisheries are overfished and have collapsed or are on the verge of collapse. This is but one example of the tragedy of the commons—where a limited common resource is overused because each individual person thinks, "If I don't use this resource first, then somebody else will." Students in this activity act as fishermen and women who need to share an ocean of fish and take in a catch. Groups soon realize that if they don't set fishing limits and monitor the fish population, soon there are no fish left in the ocean.

Determining whether students have met the goals

In the course of the activity, students keep track of their data using tables. At the end of the activity, students graph their data and answer a series of questions concerning the goals of this assignment and resource management in general.

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