Canadian Wildlife Federation :: Climate Change Challenge

Keywords: climate change, caribou, Arctic
Age:
Subjects: Art, Business Education
Topic:
Skills:
Duration: 30 to 45 minutes
Group Size: 15 to 45 students
Setting: Indoors and Outdoors
Conceptual Framework Reference:
Key Vocabulary:

Objectives

? understand that all living things depend on healthy habitat, which includes food, water, shelter, and space;
? recognize that fluctuations in wildlife populations are natural because habitats undergo constant change and that nature is never in a state of complete equilibrium; and
? identify ways in which climate change may threaten the delicate balance of nature.

Method

Background

Climate change poses a particular challenge in the High Arctic. Here, where the Peary caribou roams, rising temperatures, shifting seasons, deepening snows, and other phenomena are threatening the tundra habitat. Habitat includes food, water, shelter, and space ? all arranged just right to sustain living things. If any of these components are missing, damaged, or altered, so is their life-giving value. Wildlife populations naturally fluctuate in response to supporting and limiting factors, which keep them within predictable ranges. This "balance of nature" is more like a seesaw than a state of equilibrium, and species' numbers constantly waver in response to an abundance or lack of habitat.

In this dynamic activity, students will experience how everything in nature is interrelated; how suitable habitat sustains living things; how wild populations wax and wane depending on the availability of food, water, shelter, and space; and how climate change could throw this delicate system off balance.

Materials

An indoor or outdoor area, such as a gym or playing field, in which students can run; a flip chart or chalkboard; writing materials; Bristol board; paper fastener; spinning pointer (plastic clock hand)

Procedure

(note: 4000 character text limit. 10 000 characters of text)

Extension

Evaluation

Ask the students to answer the following questions:

1. What are the four main habitat components?
2. What are some of the impacts of climate change on habitat? Give four examples.

Source: http://www.cwf-fcf.org/en/educate/resources/lesson-plans/climate-change-challenge.html

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