Pollinators: Putting Food on The Table
Lesson Plans
Grades6, 7, 8Biology, Earth and Space Sciences
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Provided by The Nature Conservancy
What it is
- In this lesson from Nature Lab by The Nature Conservancy, students will explore colony collapse disorder and the possible causes of bee population declines.
- Students will understand the importance of bee pollinators in helping to grow many of the things we eat and how detrimental their loss can be.
Teaching tips
Positives
- Students, especially young students, will love role-playing as a worker bee.
- This inquiry-based lesson encourages students to participate and see value in their contributions.
Prerequisites
- The New York Times article may have popups that block the article, prompting students to subscribe, even if they have already created a free account. Teachers may want to skip this article altogether or attempt to save the article as a PDF. Additionally, the link for the Planet Ark article is broken.
- It may benefit students to have a basic understanding of how pollination works.
Differentiation & Implementation
- After learning about the importance of bees, students can work to create and care for a pollinator garden in the schoolyard. This resource can also help guide students in planning their gardens.
- After this lesson, teachers can ask students how climate change may also impact bees. Climate connections can be made with fossil fuel-based pesticides used on crops and lawns that affect bees.
- Though a lot of the information is Maine-specific, this other unit does a really great job of demonstrating the impact of climate change on bees and, in turn, what we eat.
- To make community connections, students can interview a local beekeeper, or teachers can invite local beekeepers to sit on a panel in their classroom. Students can ask questions to help with their research, exploring place-based evidence as well.
From the scientist review
This activity allows students to learn about bees and the causal factors that lead to their population decline. They will investigate the science as well as underlying compound factors that lead to colony collapse disorder. This resource is recommended for teaching.
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