Lichen Storyline Overview
Unit 1 AP Environmental Science CED- Living World- Ecosystems
Goals
This storyline is designed to introduce the major concepts and themes of environmental science and engage students in a scientific investigation. It walks them through the major skills of designing an experiment and serves as a formative assessment for educators to see how those skills need further instruction. Many AP environmental science teachers have a unit 0 to introduce major themes of the course. I have incorporated those themes I typically cover with my students into this storyline.
Why use storylines?
Storylines are essentially a thematic study of a phenomenon students can question and observe. The storyline covers many unit topics, essentially working through your content and skill standards within a unit but wraps them around sense making of the phenomenon. The value in this form of teaching is that it:
Walks students through a research pattern used in scientific study
Engages students in scientific practices that align with AP environment’s CED and NGSS national science standards
Encourages students to be curious and wonder about their environment; engaging them in science like they did in early education (something often lost in traditional methods!)
Builds stronger understanding of how content connects and applies to each other; improving strength in understanding of systems of change
Provides opportunity to introduce topics that will be covered in depth in future units, building background knowledge and optimizing the practice of a spiral curriculum to reinforce concepts year-long.
Elements of experimental design that are addressed:
Forming a scientific question and identifying variables
Methods of experimental design used in environmental science: lab investigation, field work, GIS information and tools including inaturalist, photometers
Data collection and analysis- primarily percentages
Experimental error: There are intentional limits to this experiment that I openly share with students to demonstrate that all experiments have errors. Be explicit in the discussion of human error vs experimental design error and how field work has many confounding variables that will affect data. How can we follow field work with more controlled experiments in the lab to isolate those variables?
Working in collaboration with others to evaluate scientific experiments
Why lichen?
The choice in using lichen is that it is an organism found in nearly all environments. Even if your school is in an urban area, you’d likely find some growing on undisturbed structures and trees. Students also have experience seeing them but may not know what it is. This taps into their curiosity and sense making skills. I found that even by the end of the school year after completing this unit, students still talked about lichen (and made many puns). My group even made signs to hang in the classroom about it. They love the topic and it's a great way to kick off the year with something interesting.
CED standards:
Not all unit 1 standards are covered in this storyline because I begin the use of ecocolumns directly following this lesson. The early ecocolumn steps cover the remaining standards. In addition, the goal of storylines is to cover content that explains a phenomenon so you will see several standards that are covered from units later in the CED. The following standards are covered in this storyline:
I can differentiate between habitats and niches.
I can predict how biotic and abiotic factors affect the growth patterns and niches of organisms.
I understand the impact humans have on natural systems within ecosystems, especially related to biogeochemical cycles.
I can describe symbiotic relationships between organisms and the advantages they provide.
I can use biological processes of photosynthesis and cellular respiration to describe primary productivity within a food web.
I can describe how competition drives the process of succession and how that will change the range of an organisms’ habitat.
Storyline Planning Guide:
My school runs on a hybrid blocked/standard schedule with a weekly zero hour component. This unit lasts approximately 11-12 class periods.
You can find a detailed teacher guide for purchase at my Teacher Pay Teachers Site (Moonier Science)
*This storyline can be implemented prior to or in conjunction with the ecocolumn build to complete all the standards for unit 1. The following unit 1 standards are not addressed in this storyline. I’ve included how I cover them below:
1.2 Terrestrial biomes- You can discuss this briefly with them on the nature walk and when watching the videos throughout the storyline (each video features different types of terrestrial biomes). I assign this section as flipped notes and self study with a short introductory lecture on biome patterns. I quiz them on this section. I emphasize that they’ll receive practice with the biomes throughout the year and will see the climate patterns again in unit 4 Earth systems.
1.3 Aquatic biomes- I assign this as a flipped note as well and actually quiz them on it in unit 2. Unit 2 storyline is a pond study which lends itself to learning about aquatic ecosystems.
1.6 Phosphorus cycle and 1.7 Hydrologic cycle- all the biogeochemical cycles are studied in depth during the ecocolumn build so I table those discussions for that activity. Both of these are also covered in depth in my Unit 2 storyline on pond water, during learning about eutrophication and surface runoff.
Assessment:
I often give students a couple of days to reflect and polish the lab notebooks before turning them in. It gives them time to think and process the information or to catch up on sections they may have gotten behind on. I allow them to edit their posters after the science fair if they find significant errors. For grading purposes, I grade lab notebooks based on completion. I’ll usually pick some portions to spot check for content accuracy but typically, I’m more interested in their final product for close grading. I usually spend more time reading their self assessments and group posters (paying attention to the version history to assess individual students).
I give a unit test that I build in AP classroom after covering the phosphorus and water cycles in the ecocolumn build (about 3 class periods after finishing lichen). I assign the multiple choice progress check for unit 1 one week prior to the assessment. Students must take the progress check before the morning of the test as a qualification for test corrections. By completing the progress check and test corrections, I offer them a test curve of 10%. A 10% curve encourages them to study because the curve is limited but is a large enough incentive for them to complete the self assessments which in turn improve their test taking skills and practice working with multiple choice. I save the FRQ progress checks for classroom practice.
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