Purpose: The conservation triangle includes sustainable use, preservation, and restoration (SPR). These are ways we can conserve the natural environment. We would like students to become stewards of the planet. The purpose of this lesson is to help students understand the three methods that can be used to conserve our natural environment. It is hoped that they will plan and carry-out a conservation project to enhance the quality of life.
Focus Questions: What are the conservation methods that we can apply to conserve the natural environment? How can we control the environmental consequences when humans change the physical environment? What can you do to enhance the quality of life?
National Geography Standard: The geographically informed student knows and understands:
14 How human actions modify the physical environment
16 The changes that occur in the meaning, use, distribution, and importance of resources
Hawaii Content and Performance Standard: Students demonstrate stewardship of earth's resources through the understanding of society and the physical environment.
Objectives: Students will be able to:
Categorize the examples into sustainable use, preservation, and restoration
Find examples of each method
Plan and carry-out a conservation project based on at least one of the methods.
Materials:
A set of cards that depict examples of sustainable use, preservation, and restoration
(Examples are attached - Adobe Acrobat Reader Needed.)
(words to make your own cards)
Magazines or newspaper articles
Supplies for posters
Other materials needed to carry out plan of action
Assessment: Check to see that students understand the three methods of conservation. Could they differentiate one from the other? Could they find examples that showed the three methods? Assess their projects. Were they able to apply the methods of conservation? How well were they able to implement their plans?
Procedure:
1. Prior to class - make sets of cards that depict examples of SPR. Make enough sets for groups of 4.
2. Have students categorize the cards according to SPR. Discuss the results. Students should be able to distinguish each method.
3. Have students cut out articles from magazines and newspapers that depict sustainability, preservation, and restoration. They need to organize and display the articles in such a way to show the three methods, sustainable use, preservation, and restoration.
4. Students should implement a plan of action for the use of stewardship through sustainable use, preservation, and restoration. They can choose one, two, or three methods.
5. Students will share their accomplishments with people other than their classmates. (Note: HGA is posting projects student projects on the HGA website. Students are welcomed to send summaries of their projects to the HGA office.)
Resources:
The three methods and many of the examples used in this lesson were taken from the NGS website. (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/gaw)