Phenomenon
There are a lot of pretty scary and terrible things happening on Earth in recent times.
Question
Could humans be the cause of the environmental problems on Earth today?
Model Ideas
No model in this triangle. This is a very short intro to the year in which we only get so far as to pose a question.
Overview
Transition In: This is the launch of the MBER-Living Earth sequence. Hopefully you have spent some time with your students “setting the stage” for their year of model-based reasoning.
We examine some headlines taken from a range of news sources in recent times and wonder what humans are doing to the Earth. We develop a driving question for the year that is something along the lines of “Are humans to blame for the environmental problems we see on Earth today?” We spend a few minutes brainstorming some solutions we have heard about and some teachers will use this opportunity to launch the (optional) year-long Human Impacts Project.
Transition Out: After developing our driving question for the year, we realize we need to understand more about the Earth, how it formed and how it changed, in order to get a start on our driving question. This leads us into the next unit triangle where we develop a model for Formation of the Earth.
Advanced Planning
None needed for this triangle.
Segment Title
Learning Segment 01: Examining Headlines About the Environment (20 minutes)
Overview: We begin our science learning this year by examining a range of headlines that have appeared recently in publications across the globe. We look for patterns in these headlines and discuss different categories we might put them into and bring up other related phenomena.
What we figured out...We see that there are lot of challenging things happening in the environment on Earth in recent times. We considered how we might make sense of all of these things and considered other similar events that we know about.
Segment Title
Learning Segment 02: Developing our Yearlong Question (15 minutes)
Overview: We consider the age of the Earth and note the time that humans have been around. We work together to develop a driving question.
What we figured out...We realize that humans have been on Earth for a very short period of time relative to the age of the Earth. This leads us to wonder if we really can be the cause of all of these environmental problems. We develop the question that will guide our yearlong learning in Living Earth Biology.
Segment Title
Learning Segment 03: Exploring Solutions and Transition (5-10 minutes)
Overview: In order to infuse some hope into our discussion of environmental problems, we take a moment to discussion solutions we have heard about.
OPTIONAL: Human Impacts Project Launch
What we figured out...We spent some time thinking about solutions to all of the problems and we realized we need to figure out more about the Earth and how it formed in order to get stared answering our driving question. This leads us into the next unit.
Download Resources
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Download All Human Impacts 1 (MBER-LE) Resources | 25.64 MB |