Stimulating Understanding of Computational science through Collaboration, Exploration, Experiment, and Discovery for students with hearing Impairments
a collaboration of the Shodor Education Foundation, Inc., Eastern North Carolina School for the Deaf, Barton College, the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, and Interpreters, Inc.

Overview : Many plants and animals are and will be threatened with extinction by loss of habitat. This is often caused when people change an area to meet their needs. People burn rainforests to plant crops or build towns and cities for growing populations. Global warming is a less obvious, but important cause of loss of habitat. Over the next century climates will move north from 2 to 4 miles each year. If trees can't move north this fast by reseeding, their range will shrink. This lesson allows the students to use a computer model to analyze the impact of global warming on the ranges of tree species with different growth, propagation, and distribution characteristics.

Goal: This lesson will give the students experience using a computer model to answer the following questions:
Is it reasonable to associate a tree's range with temperature? How will different rates of global warming affect the size of various trees' range? Which trees in your state might become endangered by global warming? How do different methods of propagation affect a tree species' ability to avoid extinction? How certain or imprecise are their calculations? 

Objectives: National Science Education Standards
PROPOSE DESIGNS AND CHOOSE BETWEEN ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS
Students should demonstrate thoughtful planning for a piece of technology or technique. Students should be introduced to the roles of models and simulations in these processes.  Human beings live within the world's ecosystems. Increasingly, humans modify ecosystems as a result of population growth, technology, and consumption. Human destruction of habitats through direct harvesting, pollution, atmospheric changes, and other factors is threatening current global stability, and if not addressed, ecosystems will be irreversibly affected. 
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN LOCAL, NATIONAL, AND GLOBAL CHALLENGES 
Science and technology are essential social enterprises, but alone they can only indicate what can happen, not what should happen. The latter involves human decisions about the use of knowledge. [See Content Standard E (grades 9-12) ] Understanding basic concepts and principles of science and technology should precede active debate about the economics, policies, politics, and ethics of various science- and technology-related challenges. However, understanding science alone will not resolve local, national, or global challenges. 

Prerequisites:
The students will need to know how to sort spreadsheets, use a mouse to navigate web pages, conduct a search of the web to gather information about the growth and propagation characteristics of local trees, and if the Stella model is used they must know how to open graphs and run simulations.

Materials:
Computer with Internet or CD of this lesson. Excel spreadsheet,   QuickTime to view ASL clips; AdobeAcrobat to view U.S. Geological Survey maps both are free downloads. See download page.. 

Optional materials: 
Stella  Model, Stella software. If your school doesn't have a Stella site license, you can download a free save disabled version of  Stella from http://www.hps-inc.com/. Computer models downloaded for this lesson are available on the "Download" page:

Habitat Range Model. You can also bookmark this linked page to open the model from the web each time you use it. This model is easier to manipulate but the graph is less detailed and the data isn't labeled. Also, the model can't be viewed or improved.

Stella Habitat Range Model. This model is also available free from the "Download" page. It comes zipped, so you need to have software to unzip it. You also need to have Stella or the free Save disabled Stella installed on your computers. I prefer to use the Stella version with my students because it is a more powerful tool for them to explore the model and science. Since it is more powerful, the students need a little more training before they can use it. 

The Shodor Education Foundation, Inc.

Copyright © 1999-2001 by The Shodor Education Foundation, Inc.

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This project is supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation Opinions expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the National Science Foundation.