This resource highlights the risks of overfishing, the importance of marine reserves, methods for helping fish stocks rebound, and how these measures help us feed more people.
Through two videos, a brief article, and numerous links, students will learn about overfishing, the challenges facing world fisheries, how to replenish ecosystems through smart fishing and marine reserves, and how to make smart seafood purchase choices.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This is a data-packed resource with two videos containing visually appealing images and research-based facts, including narration by Sir David Attenborough.
This resource also provides a hopeful outlook, with success stories in ocean conservation and a link that aids students in making informed seafood purchase choices.
Additional Prerequisites
The second video has background music, but all content must be read.
The "industrial" link goes straight to the National Geographic website and the information requires a search from their main page.
Differentiation
Since this resource contains two videos and an article, all of which contain information on various aspects of the same overarching topic, provide students with a note-taking guide to organize information on topics, such as problems with overfishing, challenges to fisheries, coastal reserves as a solution, smart fishing practices, and other topics.
Have students brainstorm a list of seafood that is most accessible in stores or restaurants in the area where students live and then use the Seafood Watch link to research smart seafood choices and what makes those choices more responsible.
Consider having students play this game to learn more about fishing practices and to start discussion about marine conservation and sustainability.
Pair students up and ask them to research a topic from the "Success Stories in Ocean Conservation" site to share out with the class in order to provide a hopeful outlook.
The devastating effects of overfishing and the necessary conservation efforts in coastal fisheries are presented in two video resources from WWF International. The first resource, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, clearly illustrates the challenges facing world fisheries and then provides coastal reserves as a sustainable and profitable solution. The second video uses the Peruvian anchovy as a case study to prove that coastal reserves can serve as an effective conservation strategy. These videos are both visually appealing and informative, focusing on how marine reserves can actually lead to increased catch in world fisheries. Additional resources are also included that can help students make informed seafood purchase choices, as well as a slide show from Smithsonian Magazine that presents more success stories of ocean conservation. This resource is clear, informative, and is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
MS-ESS3-4 Construct an argument supported by evidence for how increases in human population and per-capita consumption of natural resources impact Earth's systems.
LS2: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
MS-LS2-5 Evaluate competing design solutions for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: Economics
D2.Eco.2.6-8 Evaluate alternative approaches or solutions to current economic issues in terms of benefits and costs for different groups and society as a whole.
Dimension 2: Geography
D2.Geo.11.6-8 Explain how the relationship between the environmental characteristics of places and production of goods influences the spatial patterns of world trade.
Dimension 4: Taking Informed Action
D4.7.6-8 Assess their individual and collective capacities to take action to address local, regional, and global problems, taking into account a range of possible levers of power, strategies, and potential outcomes.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Reading: Informational Text (K-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.2 Determine a central idea of a text and how it is conveyed through particular details; provide a summary of the text distinct from personal opinions or judgments.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.8.2 Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to supporting ideas; provide an objective summary of the text.
Speaking & Listening (K-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.6.3 Delineate a speaker's argument and specific claims, distinguishing claims that are supported by reasons and evidence from claims that are not.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.7.3 Delineate a speaker's argument and specific claims, evaluating the soundness of the reasoning and the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.
