Exotic invasive plants of southern appalachia: an activity guide

• Introduction
• Lesson Plans

Introduction

This curriculum on invasive plants for middle school students was developed by SAMAB through a grant provided by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It was written by Leslie Marra; Rosalyn McKeown was the Project Director; and Jack Ranney was the Technical Director. To familiarize yourself with the contents of the curriculum, please read the letter to Middle School teachers. To familiarize yourself with invasive plants and the problems they present, please read the background information. A chart is provided showing the correlations of each lesson plan to the North Carolina Course of Study, Science (sixth through eighth grade), the Tennessee Science Curriculum Standards (sixth through eighth grade), and the Goals of Environmental Education.

Lesson Plans

Table of Contents

Lesson 1: Healthy Ecosystems

Organisms found in Southern Appalachia

Web of Life

Handout 1a: Tall Grasslands Guide

Handout 1b: Short Grasslands Guide

Handout 2: URL for “Build a Prairie” Web site

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Lesson 2: Native Plant Species Web Quest

Handout 1: Native Plant Species List

Handout 2: Student Instructions for Native Species Web Quest

Handout 3: Sample Native Species Notebook Entry

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Lesson 3: Weeds Gone Wild

Handout 1: Weeds Gone Wild brochure

Transparency: “Contrasting Types of Information”

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Lesson 4: Space Invaders—Unwanted Neighbors

Handout 1: Video Activity Sheet Notes

Handout 2: Video Activity Sheet Assignment

Transparency: “Space Invader Game Rules”

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Lesson 5: Most Troublesome Exotic Invasive Plant Species Web Quest

Handout 1: Student Instructions for Exotic Invasive Plant Species Web Quest

Handout 2: Sample Exotic Invasive Plant Species Notebook Entry

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Lesson 6: Exotic Invasive Plants Wipe Out Their Native Neighbors

Handout 1: Activity Sheets

Answer key for puzzles

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Lesson 7: Most Wanted Exotic Invasive Plant Poster

Handout 1: Exotic Invasive Plant Species Web Quest Web Sites

Handout 2: Wanted poster template

Handout 3: Rubric for most wanted exotic invasive plant poster

Example Poster

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Lesson 8: Ethi-Reasoning—Exotic Invasive Plant Species Topics

Handout 1: Ethi-reasoning scenarios

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Lesson 9: Choose a Viewpoint and Structure an Argument

Handout 1: Threat or Not a threat?

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Lesson 10: Walk to School

Handout 1: Individual Student Tally Sheet

Handout 2: Small Group Tally Sheet

Handout 3: Class Tally Sheet

Handout 4: Analysis Sheet

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Lesson 11: Empowerment—What Can You Do?

Handout 1: Possibilities

Handout 2: Outreach contacts

Handout 3: Opportunities

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Lesson 12: Weed Pull Preparation

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Lesson 13: Campus/Community Weed Pull

Handout 1: Types of roots

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Lesson 14: Invasive Species Jeopardy (Note: this includes printouts of game and answers)

Jeopardy Game in PowerPoint (this a Microsoft PowerPoint file)

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