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 example
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.
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: 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.
More Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy & Dynamics lessons
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