Guide 9A Living Collections
Products
Quiz, Media, & Portfolio Directions
Review Living Collections Contents
Living Collections Objectives
Aquarium
Zoo
Aviary
Arboretum
Living Collections Quiz
Quiz Directions
Complete all four sections and take the quiz on Canvas.
Use the learning objectives above to guide your studying.
Living Collections Media
Introduced in the Arboretum section of this guide:
Long-Term Habitat Study
For this assignment you are developing a study of a habitat that you could carry out over many years, even decades. Select a habitat you could return to again and again. It could be relatively un-impacted by human activity like a wilderness area, something that is easily accessible like a city park, or even something human-made like an arboretum. The point is to watch nature change over time in expected and unexpected ways. It can be a habitat you impact, like volunteering to maintain trails, or one that you watch without intervention. It could be somewhere you take people to, or something that is just yours to study.
Include the following in your media piece:
(1) First, select a habitat. Describe the habitat, explain why you have selected this habitat, and state how often you plan to return.
(2) Next, predict the changes you expect to occur over different time intervals. For example, changes in organisms and/or environmental conditions you would expect to see next year, in five years, and in a decade. These could be natural or human-induced changes and they can be small-scale or large scale. You will be looking back some day to see how accurate your predictions were.
(3) Then, explain how you will collect data on these changes so you do not forget what you have observed from one time interval to the next.
Questions to consider: how will you observe changes? Will you take photos, journal your thoughts, and/or make a video with you in it so you can also observe how you change as well? Do you expect to see succession, with the community of organisms changing over time? What kind of disturbances could occur? What organisms do you think you will see more of or fewer of? How will you be impacted if this habitat disappears or changes significantly over time?
This media piece is a perfect fit for your portfolio so you can reference it in the future. Depending on how you develop this piece, it could possibly slot into Environmental Biology Concepts (observing succession over time), Environmental Biology Skills (describing a habitat in detail over time), or even Environmental Biology Connections (an art piece).
Media Directions
To be completed after taking the quiz on Canvas.
Once you have completed your long-term habitat study, upload your piece to Canvas. This can be submitted as a PDF, a word document, a photo of the notes, or even a video. Multiple assignment formats are supported.
Portfolio
Portfolio Directions
Consider adding your long-term habitat study to the final portfolio. This way you can reference your work repeatedly into the future, adding new thoughts and observations over time.
Learn more about Living Collections
If you would like to learn more about the topics introduced in this course, please visit the resources page.
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9A: Living Collections