Project Title: Stop the Invasion
Mission:
Culminating / Take Action Project
What Kids Learn
In this project students will explore the impact that invasive species can have on ecosystems through the highly-engaging example of the Burmese python that has invaded the Florida Everglades! Through the lens of the invasive python, students learn all about ecosystems and how species adapt within ecosystems. Students compare and contrast the habitat of the Everglades with the Burmese python’s natural home, identify the traits that help pythons thrive in the Everglades, and examine the devastating impact pythons have on the mammals living in the Everglades. Students grapple with whether or not it’s right to eliminate invasive species to protect other endangered animals and find out all the creative and innovative ways people are trying to help. Students take action by creating a comic book to teach others about invasive species and to help stop the spread.
Overview
Life Habit Focus: Creativity
Subject: Life science, ELA
Grade: 3-5
Topic: ecosystems, ecological balance, invasive species, cause and effect, comic book writing
Project preview
Project Materials
Project Module
Student Notebook
Teacher's Guide
Materials List
Virtual Field Trips
One of our goals is to help kids connect what they are learning in our projects to the real world beyond the classroom. To do that, we’ve partnered with experts from around the world to help students deepen their understanding of their mission and learn about interesting careers. The Stop the Invasion project partners with:
Everglades National Park
Students meet Larry Perez, author of Snake in the Grass: An Everglades Invasion. Larry grew up near the Florida Everglades and worked as a park ranger. Larry teaches students more about the Burmese python and the impact that the fierce invader has had on its new home, the Everglades.
Writer Regine Sawyer
Students meet professional comic book writer, Regine Sawyer. Regine is the founder of the Women in Comics Collective, owns a comic book publishing company and has written for Marvel and DC Comics. She’ll share strategies and tips to help students make professional comic books..
Aligned Standards
Common Core Reading (CCSS):
- Informational/Nonfiction Standards R.I. 1-10 for grades 3-5.
- Reading Literature Standard R.L 5.7
- Writing Standards W. 1,3,4,5 for grades 3-5.
- Listening and Speaking Standards SL. 1-6 for grades 3-5.
NGSS Standards:
Performance Expectations (PE):
- 3-LS4-3. Construct an argument with evidence that in a particular habitat some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.
- 3-LS4-4. Make a claim about the merit of a solution to a problem caused when the environment changes and the types of plants and animals that live there may change
- 5-LS2-1 Develop a model to describe the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers, and the environment.
Science and Engineering Practices (SEP):
- Develop a model to describe phenomena.
- Construct an argument with evidence.
Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCI):
- LS2.A: Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems: The food of almost any kind of animal can be traced back to plants. Organisms are related in food webs in which some animals eat plants for food and other animals eat the animals that eat plants. Some organisms, such as fungi and bacteria, break down dead organisms (both plants or plants parts and animals) and therefore operate as “decomposers.” Decomposition eventually restores (recycles) some materials back to the soil. Organisms can survive only in environments in which their particular needs are met. A healthy ecosystem is one in which multiple species of different types are each able to meet their needs in a relatively stable web of life. Newly introduced species can damage the balance of an ecosystem.
- LS2.C Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning, and Resilience: When the environment changes in ways that affect a place’s physical characteristics, temperature, or availability of resources, some organisms survive and reproduce, others move to new locations, yet others move into the transformed environment, and some die
- LS4.C Adaptation: For any particular environment, some kinds of organisms survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.
- LS4.D Biodiversity and Humans: Populations live in a variety of habitats, and change in those habitats affects the organisms living there.
Crosscutting Concepts (CC):
- Cause and Effect
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