Protecting Biodiversity by Design
Aligned to MS-LS2-5 — Next Generation Science Standards.
What this lesson teaches
Healthy ecosystems provide services like clean water, pollination, and fertile soil. Engineers and communities design different solutions to protect biodiversity, and we can compare these solutions by weighing their benefits, costs, and trade-offs.
Worked examples
Example 1
To save a struggling bee population, one town plants wildflower strips while another bans certain pesticides; comparing them shows the flowers cost little but work slowly, while the ban helps fast but is harder to enforce — a real trade-off to evaluate.
Example 2
A wildlife corridor connecting two protected areas can matter more than making either one bigger, because isolated populations lose genetic diversity.
Example 3
Every solution has a cost someone pays. A pesticide ban protects bees and raises costs for farmers, and a plan that ignores that will not last.
Practice questions
- Observe your yard or a park and list which living things depend on one another there.
- Sketch two different plans to protect a local pollinator and note the cost and benefit of each.
- Evaluate the two plans and argue which better maintains biodiversity, using specific trade-offs as evidence.
Watch the lesson
Every lesson comes with a video taught in English and Spanish — the same video the QR code in the printed workbook opens.
▶ Watch this lessonEn español
Proteger la biodiversidad con diseño
Los ecosistemas sanos brindan servicios como agua limpia, polinización y suelo fértil. Los ingenieros y las comunidades diseñan distintas soluciones para proteger la biodiversidad, y podemos comparar esas soluciones sopesando sus beneficios, costos y compensaciones.
Ejemplo 1: Para salvar una población de abejas en apuros, un pueblo siembra franjas de flores silvestres mientras otro prohíbe ciertos pesticidas; al compararlos se ve que las flores cuestan poco pero actúan despacio, mientras que la prohibición ayuda rápido pero es más difícil de hacer cumplir — una compensación real que evaluar.
Ejemplo 2: Un corredor biológico que conecte dos áreas protegidas puede importar más que agrandar cualquiera de las dos, porque las poblaciones aisladas pierden diversidad genética.
Ejemplo 3: Toda solución tiene un costo que alguien paga. Prohibir un pesticida protege a las abejas y eleva costos a los agricultores, y un plan que lo ignore no durará.
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