Thru the Lens

Summary

While participating in the Climate Kids activities of art, science, and storytelling, students will gain a better understanding of wildlife movement (with particular emphasis on carnivores), their importance to our region, how scientists study them using tools like camera traps and telemetry, and how these animals will be impacted by climate change and increased human activity.

Vocabulary

Adaptation, Camera Trap, Carbon Dioxide, Carnivore, Climate Change, Connectivity, Culvert, Drought, Ecosystem, Encroachment, Food Web, Fossil Fuel, Greenhouse Gas, Habitat Fragmentation, Precipitation, Predator, Prey, Radio Collar 

Objectives

Students will:

• Explore the impacts of climate change and increased human activities on select wildlife species with an emphasis on carnivores
• Analyze carnivore specimens and determine traits/characteristics of carnivores
• Interpret climate data on drought and precipitation changes
• Learning how to interpret camera trap data 
• Develop and share solutions for carnivores to adapt to increased human activities
• Create and design artwork to portray impacts on or solutions for carnivore resiliency

Next Generation Science Standards

MS-LS1-5: Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence for how environmental and genetic factors influence the growth of organisms. 

MS-LS2-1: Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for the effects of resource availability on organisms and populations of organisms in an ecosystem. 

MS-LS2-4: Construct an argument supported by empirical evidence that changes to physical or biological components of an ecosystem affect populations. MS-ESS3-5: Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century.