Original Title: Citizens Investigate Potential Problems from Black Bear Population

Profile Sheet

Primary Subject Area: Science

Outside Subject Area: Language Arts

Description of student roles and problem situation:

Students will assume the roles of County Commissioners and Environmentalists to come up with solutions to the Florida black bear problem; population increasing to the point of nuisance and danger to citizens. The students will be divided into two groups (environmentalists and county commissioners) and will review all of the information presented by the teacher and guest speaker. Within each group, each student must research possible solutions and share these solutions with his/her group. They will then, as a group, create a presentation with the best solution to the problem, which will be presented to an audience made up of the teacher, parents, and classmates who are fictional representatives of each group (county commissioners and environmentalist).

Teacher: Stephanie Leavins

Grade level: 4th grade

Adaptations for Student from Non-Western culture:

Include resources from the student’s culture

Include audience member from the student’s culture

Research values system of culture and align instructional techniques and classroom activities with these value systems

Adaptations for ESOL Student:

Include resources in student’s first language

Use community resources to include representative speaking student’s first language in audience for presentations

Allow students to present in first language

Allow native language dictionaries

Title, Learner Characteristics, and

Next Generation Sunshine State Standards

Teacher: Stephanie Leavins

Title: Citizens Investigate Potential Problems from Black Bear Population

Primary Subject Area: Science

Outside Subject Area: Language Arts

Class Life Science

Class Level: Regular

Grade Level: 4th grade

Primary Sunshine State Standards:

Science/Life Science-4

Big Idea 16: Heredity and Reproduction

SC.4.L.16.2: Explain that although characteristics of plants and animals are inherited, some characteristics can be affected by the environment.

SC.4.L.16.3: Recognize that animal behaviors may be shaped by heredity and learning.

Outside Subject Area Sunshine State Standards:

Reading/Language Arts/Communication-4

Standard 2: Listening and Speaking

LA.4.5.2.2: The student willplan, organize, and give an oral presentation and use appropriate voice, eye, and body movements for the topic, audience, and occasion;

Learner Characteristics of Elementary School Students:

Physical: “Although small in magnitude, gender differences in motor skill performance are apparent. Both boys and girls attain mastery over large and small muscle; one benefit of this is a relatively orderly classroom” (pg. 85).

Justification: “Fourth and fifth graders can sit quietly for extended periods and concentrate on whatever intellectual task is at hand” (p. 85). This problem will allow students to learn about problems with black bear population while listening to a lecture on the topic and taking notes in order to prepare a presentation.

Social: “The peer group becomes powerful and begins to replace adults as the major source of behavior standards and recognition of achievement” (pg. 85).

Justification: “Because children of this age are increasingly concerned with being accepted by their peer group and do not have enough self-assurance to oppose group norms” (pg. 85). This will help to maintain a controlled classroom and participation, because students will not want to feel singled out for not behaving or participating like their classmates.

Emotional: “During this period, children develop a more global, integrated, and complex self-image” (pg. 86).

Justification: “Self-concept refers to the evaluative judgments people make of themselves in specific domains, such as academic performance, social interactions…” (pg. 86). This PBL lesson will allow the students the opportunity to assess themselves in comparison to their classmates as related to behavior and staying on task, and allow them social interactions when they work in their groups to complete their presentation.

Cognitive: “The elementary grade child can think logically, although such thinking is constrained and inconsistent” (pg. 88).

Justification: According to Piaget, “most students will have attained enough mastery of logical schemes that they can understand and solve tasks that involve such processes as inclusion, seriation, conservation, and symbolic representation, provided that the content of the task refers to real, tangible ideas that the child has either experienced or can imagine” (p. 88). This PBL lesson will allow the students the opportunity to learn about a real life problem, and relate it to a personal or imagined experience, and use research to help them offer a solution.

Cognitive: “On tasks that call for simple memory skills, elementary grade children often perform about as well as adolescents or adults” (pg. 88).

Justification: “When tasks call for recognizing previously learned information, elementary grade children can perform about as well as older students” (pg. 88). This PBL lesson will allow the students the opportunity to learn information and use what they have learned to give a presentation.

Learning Outcomes, Student Role & Problem Situation,

Meet the Problem Method

Teacher: Stephanie Leavins

Title: Citizens Investigate Potential Problems from Black Bear Population

Primary Subject Area: Science

Outside Subject Area: Language Arts

Class Life Science

Class Level: Regular

Grade Level: 4th grade

Primary Sunshine State Standards:

Science/Life Science-4

Big Idea 16: Heredity and Reproduction

SC.4.L.16.2: Explain that although characteristics of plants and animals are inherited, some characteristics can be affected by the environment.

Learning Outcome

When provided with information by the teacher, the students will be able to correctly compare the difference between inherited characteristics and those affected by the environment of the Florida black bear with 80% accuracy. (Analysis)

SC.4.L.16.3: Recognize that animal behaviors may be shaped by heredity and learning.

Learning Outcome

When provided with information by the teacher, the students will be able to correctly categorize the behaviors of the Florida Black bear into the correct groups with 80% accuracy. (Evaluation)

Outside Subject Learning Outcome

Area Sunshine State Standards:

Reading/Language Arts/Communication-4

Standard 2: Listening and Speaking

LA.4.5.2.2: The student willplan, organize, and give an oral presentation and use appropriate voice, eye, and body movements for the topic, audience, and occasion;

Learning Outcome

When presented with information about the Florida black bear problem, the student will be able to correctly create and present an oral presentation providing three solutions to the problem with 80% fulfillment of the provided rubric requirements. (Synthesis)

Learner Characteristics of Elementary School Students:

Social: “The peer group becomes powerful and begins to replace adults as the major source of behavior standards and recognition of achievement” (pg. 85).

Emotional: “During this period, children develop a more global, integrated, and complex self-image” (pg. 86).

Cognitive: “The elementary grade child can think logically, although such thinking is constrained and inconsistent” (pg. 88).

Cognitive: “On tasks that call for simple memory skills, elementary grade children often perform about as well as adolescents or adults” (pg. 88).

Description of Student Roles and Problem Situation:

Meet the Problem Method:

Okaloosa County, Florida

M * E * M * O

Date: January 18, 2011

To: Okaloosa County Commissioners and Environmentalists

From: Stephanie Leavins, Concerned Citizen

Subject: Problems Resulting from the Increase in the Florida Black Bear Population

As you can see from the attached newspaper articles, the Florida black bear population is on the rise due to conservation efforts. While conservationists want the Florida black bear population to thrive, the population has increased to be a nuisance and potential danger to the residents of Okaloosa County. The bears have been spotted in many commercial areas and residential neighborhoods digging through trash, and numerous bears have been involved in motor vehicle accidents causing damage to vehicles and drives, as well as killing numerous bears. We must find a solution to this problem that is beneficial to both citizens and black bears. Please assemble a team to review the information and come up with three possible solutions to this problem.

The problem solutions will be presented at Edge Elementary on Friday, February 10 at 1:00 PM in classroom 4. I would like for your group to present your solution recommendations at this meeting. I will contact State officials to obtain funding for the best solution. The budget for this will be no more than $5,000.

Article 1

Black bear population must be controlled

June 06, 2011 05:41:51 PM

The June 3 op-ed from The Humane Society of the United States ("Florida’s black bears should remain on threatened species list") was riddled with inaccuracies regarding the "plight" of the black bear in Florida.

The Florida black bear population is a sufficiently severe problem that the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has built and proposed the management plan Ms. Hobgood mentions. The FWC’s plan is based on the actual population of bears in the area. I don’t know where Ms. Hobgood got her numbers, but the "statewide" black bear population figures she cited are not accurate and probably best represent the black bear population in the Central and Eastern Florida Panhandle alone.

Most outdoorsmen, including personnel at the FWC, agree that placing the black bear on the state’s endangered species list was a politically motivated move by the former Florida Game and Fish Commission that was not based on biology or science. Ask the hundreds of drivers in the state who have collided with a bear on a busy highway if there isn’t a bear problem. Ask the bee keeper if attacks that destroy bee apiaries haven’t increased in recent years, a time when the bee population is already decimated to the point that there are grave concerns about the world’s food supply.

A highly controlled hunt with a limited season on black bear could be part of a solution to help control the population.

CHARLES WOOTEN

Lynn Haven

Editor’s note: The writer is president of the Bear Creek Sportsman’s Association.

Read more: http://www.newsherald.com/articles/black-94225-states-controlled.html#ixzz1jqXsViKT

Article 2

Southwest Florida

Water Management District

Florida Black Bear

The Florida black bear is the largest native land mammal in Florida. It is shy and secretive, hiding in dense vegetation and rarely seen in the wild. The Florida black bear has a shiny, black coat of long fur and a light brown nose and snout. Some black bears have white diamond-shaped patterns on their chests. The black bear has a short tail that is almost always hidden by its long fur, and long, sharp claws that help the bear climb trees or dig for food. Bears are omnivores, meaning they eat both vegetable and animal matter. Some foods a black bear may eat include acorns, insects, berries, saw palmetto and sabal palm fruits, armadillos and honey. Long thought to only be in search of honey, many bear biologists now believe that when a bear cracks open a bee hive, it's actually looking for both the sweetness of the honey and the protein provided by the bee larvae! With a diet like this, it is no wonder that female bears can weigh between 150 to 300 pounds and male bears can weigh between 250 to 450 pounds. Most Florida black bears are between 5 to 6 feet long and are about 3 feet high at the shoulder. But it's not because of their size that black bears are called an "umbrella species." Because of their broad ecological requirements, black bears need a variety of habitats over a large geographic area. As such, they share living space with a variety of other protected, threatened and endangered animals. Some of these include the gopher tortoise, Eastern Indigo snake and the Florida scrub jay. By protecting the Florida black bear and its habitat, we also protect these other species' habitats. In this way, everybody gets protection under the umbrella! You see, the Florida black bear is an important part of Florida's ecosystems.