This resource about the importance of mangrove forests includes a lesson plan, teacher slides, extension activities, and a wealth of additional links and resources.
Students will learn about the benefits of mangrove ecosystems, the threats against mangroves, and what can be done to protect and conserve mangroves.
This lesson is designed to take one 50-minute session, but optional extension activities make it possible to extend the lesson over multiple teaching sessions.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This resource has all the necessary information and materials for teachers to deliver a high-quality lesson with engaging visuals and student activities.
Teachers can use the notes on each slide to plan their lesson, as well as the talk moves document to focus on encouraging student discourse.
This lesson plan comes with two additional extension activities to help empower students to take action and protect mangroves.
Additional Prerequisites
To participate in the extension activities, students should have access to technology.
This resource comes with directions for Adobe Creative Cloud Express so that teachers can assist students in making digital infographics or videos. If teachers plan to use this technology, they should familiarize themselves by reading through the document ahead of time.
Differentiation
English language arts classes could use this resource as a research component before students write a persuasive essay arguing for the benefits of protecting mangrove ecosystems.
Try using the optional extension activities to provide choices and multiple means of assessment for students.
Related resources include this video about mangrove research, this video and article about the importance of mangrove forests, and the version of Magic of Mangroves lesson plan for elementary students.
Scientist Notes
The human activities that threaten mangroves and the steps required to maintain a healthy mangrove ecosystem will be revealed to students, along with the function of mangroves in protecting coastlines, biodiversity, and fighting climate change. Teachers can use this resource in the classroom as it is recommended.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
MS-ESS3-3 Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.
LS2: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
MS-LS2-4 Construct an argument supported by empirical evidence that changes to physical or biological components of an ecosystem affect populations.
MS-LS2-5 Evaluate competing design solutions for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services.
HS-LS2-3 Construct and revise an explanation based on evidence for the cycling of matter and flow of energy in aerobic and anaerobic conditions.
HS-LS2-5 Develop a model to illustrate the role of photosynthesis and cellular respiration in the cycling of carbon among the biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere.
HS-LS2-6 Evaluate the claims, evidence, and reasoning that the complex interactions in ecosystems maintain relatively consistent numbers and types of organisms in stable conditions, but changing conditions may result in a new ecosystem.
HS-LS2-7 Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity.
LS4: Biological Evolution: Unity and Diversity
HS-LS4-6 Create or revise a simulation to test a solution to mitigate adverse impacts of human activity on biodiversity.
