Changing Climate,
Changing Animals

In a Nutshell:

Students review background materials (provided) on climate change impacts. They work in small groups to make a poster on the possible impacts of climate change on one particular northern animal, and how this will affect the people who depend on these animals.

Goal:

To help students become aware of how global warming and climate change can impact wildlife and northern lifestyles.

Background Learning:

Teachers and students should be familiar with the basic science of climate change.

High school students should read:

• High School Backgrounder #8: Impacts on Northern Wildlife
• High School Backgrounder #9: Impacts on Fish and Fowl
• High School Backgrounder #10: Impacts on Northern Marine Life (See teaching suggestion below.)

Intermediate students should read:

• Intermediate Backgrounder #2: Climate Change Impacts: A Changing World? (Especially the section entitled “What About the Plants and Animals?”)

Background Teaching Suggestion:
Depending on their reading level, students may need to have the backgrounders read to them by the teacher or by other students taking turns (students following along on their own copies). Allow opportunities for discussion as you go along.

If you are planning on doing Extension 1 (see below), help students internalize basic climate change information by making a large mural showing the possible effects of climate change on the land in their region. This can then become the background for the animals and information added by students later.

Learning Outcomes:

Click on the icon for your territory to review the learning outcomes that are addressed by this lesson:

Introduction to Lesson Plan:

What do Animals Need? Habitats and Adaptations

Think about what animals need in their homes, or habitats. Every animal needs things like:

• food
• shelter
• safety from predators
• safe conditions to give birth to young, and raise them

When aspects of their habitat change, animals are forced to adapt. For instance, if a certain kind of food isn’t available any more, an animal may be able to adapt by either moving to find another source of the food, or finding a different type of food to eat.

Northern People and Northern Animals

Northern regions are home to wildlife that are specifically adapted to survival in a particular northern climate. And northern people have also adapted to a life that relies to some extent on these animals. What happens when the environment – in this case the climate – changes? In some cases, animals can move to another part of the country, where the climate is what they are used to. But in other cases – that of the Arctic char, for instance – there’s no place to move. The char needs cold water, and there may be nowhere cold enough for it to go.

Kugluktuk is a small Inuit community of about 1,200 people on the coast of Nunavut. (To find Kugluktuk on the map, draw a line straight north from Edmonton through Yellowknife and keep going to the ocean.) For generations, people in Kugluktuk have relied on certain animals for sustenance. Animals like caribou, moose, muskox, wolverine, arctic char, and snow goose are very important. These animals are used for food, for their skins, and as spiritual symbols.

Today, fewer people depend on animals for survival, but people – especially in rural communities – still have a strong cultural connection to this animal population. Wild meat is still the main food for many people of the north.

Activity:

1. Pre-lesson Teacher Preparation: Identify a number of local animals that will be affected by climate change – one for each pair or small group in the class. If the students will need to research these animals, gather a selection of useful books and/or arrange computer time so that students can have access to the Web.
2. Read the backgrounders listed above in the backgrounder section with the students and discuss the material. (If you choose to do Extension 1 below, invite the class to create a mural showing the effect of climate changes on the land and vegetation in their region.)
3. Students get into pairs or small groups and are assigned a local animal by the teacher. (Hint: Pick animal names out of a hat.)
4. Give each group a copy of the handout – “Changing Climate, Changing Animals.” This handout helps the students - and you – to go through the activity step by step. To get it, go to the handout section below, and click on the icon. Go through this handout in detail, explaining each of the steps:
   
   
   • Step 1 – Consider the Questions
   • Step 2 – Rate the Changes
   • Step 3 – Add up the Impacts
   • Step 4 – Get Personal
   • As you go along – Keep Track of Questions

   (Note: You may prefer to adapt this poster activity to a mural activity instead. See Extension 1: Changing Critters Mural/Bulletin Board, in the Enrichment Ideas section below.)

5. From here on in, the teacher should take the role of a resource person, answering questions, providing direction, and making sure students have art materials.
6. Post the finished products in your school, and also on the Climate Change North Student Exchange. You can do this by taking digital photos of the posters or mural (or regular photos run through a scanner) and posting them on the Student Exchange. (See Student Web-Exchange below.)

Handouts:

Click on the icon for the handout that supports this lesson – Student Handout: Changing Climate, Changing Animals.

Student Web-Exchange:

Share the posters. Take pictures to post on the Student Web-Exchange. Students can post information on their animal along with a picture. Click on the icon for information on how to post material.

Evaluation:

Evaluate students on three factors:

• Answers to the question sheets (10 marks)
• Poster display (10 marks)
• Group work (5 marks) – Members of the group evaluate their partner(s)

Poster Criteria

Content

• Contents are complete (6 marks)
• Contents are nearly complete – (5 marks)
• Contents are somewhat complete – (3 marks)
• Very little content or info – (1 mark)

Style

• Neatness (2 marks)
• Layout of titles and info (2 marks)

Group Evaluation

Rate your partner(s) a mark out of 5, depending on how well they met these criteria:

• Cooperated
• Didn’t waste time – was on task
• Contributed ideas
• Contributed to the final product – did his/her specific task

Enrichment Ideas:

Science/ English Language Arts / Visual Arts

Extension 1: Changing Critters Mural/Bulletin Board: Create a class mural using the background you created when introducing this lesson (see “Background Learning”). Invite students to come up with creative ways of including their animals and information on the mural. (One possibility: Stick the animals on the mural, and link each animal by string to a piece of paper containing the information.) Students may use computer layout skills to produce attractive information sheets.

Extension 2: Chains of Impact: If one plant or animal becomes scarce or extinct, how will the others be affected? For example, if the arctic char dies out, what other animals are affected? Make up a food chain showing how each of the animals up the food chain will be affected. (The pictures could be used to make a food-chain mural.)

Extension 3: Write On! Invite the students to write about what they have learned, or what they need to know:

Write a letter or send an email to a scientist, asking questions (See A.R.M. Education Center and Ask Dr. Global Change websites in More Information below.)

Write a letter describing what they have learned about climate change to a political representative in their community or territory. (See Write On!)

Extension 4: Fantasy Animals: Students create a radically changed future climate in their region, then create a fantasy animal adapted to the changed climate and changed ecosystem.

About the Author:

Maxine Malmberg has been teaching science for two years in at Kugluktuk High School, a school of 12 teachers and 140 students in the coastal community of Kugluktuk, Nunavut.

Maxine first came to Kugluktuk six years ago as a microbiologist. She was offered a job subbing at the school, and liked it so much that she took her teacher training and came back as a full-fledged teacher.

“Life in Kugluktuk,” says Maxine, “is such an adventure.” Maxine had never driven a skidoo or camped in the winter before she came to Kugluktuk from the Kootenay region of B.C. “The kids are great to work with – really friendly.” She enjoys the sense of community. “People take the time to get to know you and talk to you here.” As well as teaching science, Maxine coaches the Kugluktuk High girls soccer team.