Using real scientific data about daily life to link environmental issues to ecological processes in secondary school science classrooms.

Ecology Disrupted offers a set of classroom-tested case study curriculum units based on recent scientific research on environmental impacts that arise from daily life activities.

• The research is introduced using videos produced by the Museum's Science Bulletins program. 
• Additional video profiles give the research a human face, showing scientists in the field talking about personal perspectives that motivate their work.
• Students work with real data sets from the published research and perform analyses that replicate the research findings, and elicit awareness of the ecological principles at work.

By explicitly connecting ecological processes to environmental issues that result when human daily life disrupts these processes, students can begin to understand their personal connections to ecological processes.

Read A Message to Teachers to learn more about the pedagogical approach of Ecology Disrupted.

Review How to Use the Ecology Disrupted Materials to learn how to navigate the Ecology Disrupted web site, and how to locate and use specific materials for creating your own lesson plans.

Look through the list of Key Topics that are covered in the Ecology Disrupted lessons.  For each topic, we have selected a few of the materials that are especially good for teaching the topic.

Browse through the set of Contributed Materials from other educators who have used the Ecology Disrupted materials to make their own lessons, and to learn how to contribute your materials to the site.

UNITS

Curriculum Bighorn Sheep Major highways that connect Los Angeles and Las Vegas run through major habitats of bighorn sheep. These highways allow travel between Los Angeles and Las Vegas in just four hours, but what do they mean for the sheep? Essential Question:  How might being able to drive between Los Angeles and Las Vegas in just four hours put bighorn sheep at risk? Key Topics: Habitats Populations Inbreeding DNA Measuring and Map Analysis Genetic Diversity Level: 7th - 12th grade

Curriculum Winter Roads In winter, salt is regularly applied to melt ice on roads in the Northeast. But road salt runoff drains into streams and drinking water. Scientists have been testing freshwater in three regions of the Northeast for thirty years. The salt buildup has made some urban, suburban, and rural streams 25 percent as salty as seawater. Essential Question:  How might snowy and icy roads affect Baltimore area’s water supply? Key Topics: Abiotic and Biotic Factors Water Runoff Ecosystems Graphing Level: 7th - 12th grade

Curriculum Chesapeake Bay Disrupted Food Webs: Exploring the relationship between overfishing and dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay. Essential Question:   In what ways have people caused the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem to become more vulnerable to algal blooms and dead zones?  Students analyze historic and present-day food webs and graph historic and present-day Chesapeake Bay data to learn how food web complexity is easily overlooked, and why that complexity is important for healthy ecosystems. Key Topics: Food Webs Nitrogen Cycle Dead Zones Overfishing Estuaries Graphing Level: 7th - 12th grade