Biodiversity

Biodiversity is a complicated concept because it can apply at so many different levels.

Further Viewing

I have been working to develop curricular materials to teach elementary students, their teachers, and college students about biodiversity, so I have presentations aimed at a variety of different levels. Hopefully, there will be elements in some of these presentations that will help you to better understand biodiversity and maybe use in your courses.

1) Here is a slideshow that I prepared for an ecology class that I taught last spring that introduces the concept of diversity in general before introducing biodiversity. In addition to a brief discussion of diversity at the genetic level, thus presentation focuses in diversity at the community level and introduces such important concepts as species richness, species diversity, and evenness.

http://www.slideshare.net/secret/4GyUbOQ0pXY5uC

2)Here is a slideshow that my ecology students and I developed to try to introduce biodiversity to elementary students. This presentation includes species definitions, classification, and a discussion of the value of diversity.

http://www.slideshare.net/secret/4wHpDC3GnCZ61c

3) Here is a slideshow that I prepared for students in my ecology class that focuses on the mathematical indices that we use to measure species diversity and evenness. I don't know if this is at the appropriate level for your students, but it is an excellant topic to integrate biology and math.

http://www.slideshare.net/secret/wDiDEN5QiEQV8V

4) Here is an exercise that I developed to teach my ecology class about biodiversity. My plan was to develop an activity that would mimic how we might try to teach this concept to younger kids. I thought that I was very clever coming up with an activity using candy, but then I learned that the Lubbock ISD doesn't allow candy in the classroom (that just left more candy for me). This is a fairly high level, but parts of it might be useful for your students.

http://www.slideshare.net/secret/JshtMR5gndzPEU

5) Here is an exercise that I developed to introduce the topic of biodiversity to elementary students using the characters from Finding Nemo. It is fairly basic, but it would be great if all middle school and high school students were able to do this work.

http://www.slideshare.net/secret/3S2mU4jlcVjsoc

Species Diversity

Ecologists are often interested in the species diversity. Diversity is a fairly complex concept because diversity in a system can be influenced by more than one factor.

Species diversity if influenced by species richness and by species evenness. Biologists have developed equations that allow them to quantify species diversity and evenness (these are known as diversity indices). I introduce two of these diversity indices, the Shannon Index and the Simpson's Index, in the slideshows I have included here.

Expected Learning Outcomes

At the end of this course a fully engaged student should be able to

- define biodiversity and explain the various components of diversity including genetic diversity, species diversity, and functional diversity (TEKS 112.43. 7B)

- distinguish between species richness, species diversity, and evenness and be able to use indices to quantify these components of diversity.

- discuss the factors that influence diversity in an ecological community (TEKS 112.43. 7B, 12A, & 12E and TEKS 112.44 6C)

- explain why biodiversity is important (TEKS 112.44 4E)

- compare threats to biodiversity in their local region with those in a distant region (TEKS 112.44 4E)