Biodiversity Month - Report 161

Report - Ecology Club Presentations

Event Description

Event type: Other - Presentations
Number of Participants: 3 conservation educators, 60 students

Ms. Deirdre Ballou reports:

Students from Olivenhain Elementary's Ecology Club learned through an interactive activity and slide show, what biodiversity is, and how their ZSSD ecology club activities this year have contributed to conserving worldwide biodiversity. Students shared how they saved a variety of animals, such as desert tortoises, by starting a recycling program at their school and reducing how much trash goes into our landfills. Also, by designing their own canvas shopping bags with desert wildlife drawings, the students encouraged their parents to use the canvas bags while grocery shopping, limiting the use of plastic and paper. Each student was provided with a task throughout the slide show presentation. Individuals were provided with either a biodiversity card on a local desert animal or a desert plant sample. With the help of images from the slide presentation, students read the information on their biodiversity card when their specific animal appeared on the screen. They also asked the rest of group questions such as, what does this animal need to survive and why is it endangered. After learning about ten endangered animals of the local desert, the Peninsular bighorn sheep and its plant diet was highlighted. Students handed plant samples around and discussed as a group how this sheep eats over 300 plants in the desert. The group came to the conclusion that without the Peninsular bighorn many plants would not survive because they would not be dispersed throughout the desert habitat without the sheep. The students learned how important plant life can be for a habitat and the conservation of its biodiversity.

At Kendall School's Ecology Club, students were treated to a slide presentation about the Turks and Caicos rock iguana and the ZSSD's project to protect these critically endangered lizards. The students learned about the geography of the Turks and Caicos Islands as well as the ecology of the iguana and how it serves as a seed disperser for plants of their threatened tropical dry forest habitat. Next the students participated in an activity to collect the seeds of a important native plant, white sage (Salvia apiana). Using rollers and a sieve system, students worked together to collect the seeds from the plant's seed stalks. Students would later act like seed dispersers, planting the seeds in their native plant garden. To complete the day, the older students were given several math homework problems that dealt with iguana population size and percentage of habitat remaining. In the end, students got to experience biodiversity from two sides-as animals playing a role in ecological persistence of biodiversity and as researchers working to protect biodiversity by carrying out research on those animals.

From small to large, mammal to insect, and desert to rain forest--the lesson of biodiversity at Morning Creek's Ecology Club included all these varieties. With an oversized paper magnifying glass in hand, students looked at a special globe to discover the vast number of species on Earth (more than 14 million)! Students were divided into six groups (i.e., Mammals, Plants, Insects) and given a label with their group's name on it. A poster board was mounted on the front chalkboard with a large pie chart. Each piece of the pie represented the relative percentage of a particular group of organisms found on the Earth. The students' task was to identify which piece of the pie corresponded to their groups' name. The students further defined the diversity of their groups by calling out as many examples as they could within one minute. Then they focused on the diversity of mammals, from the smallest of the bats to the largest of the rhinos, exploring props and hearing stories from a former keeper. Students focused on local plants during the seed separation activity and identified six of San Diego's habitats featured on their special bookmarks.

In summary, all the Ecology club participants enjoyed the special Biodiversity Month presentations. Next year, we would expand our audience, possibly doing an event on site and the Zoo and Wild Animal Park.