Ridge to Reef
The Ridge to Reef project is a project that my team did for the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park foundation. Our goal was to understand and learn about biology's many components and to help the endangered species native to California. In this project, our team was split into many groups of six in which we did research and created lessons on the following critically endangered species: the California Condor, Bighorn Sheep, Vaquita Porpoise, and Pronghorn. These lessons were to be directed to a younger audience (elementary school) and then presented to fourth graders at High Tech Elementary school. The zoo foundation would, in time, receive these lessons, translate them to Spanish, and then have other people travel and present them to schoolchildren in the Baja Mexico area.
The Lesson
The lessons we all created were composed if three parts. The first being a simple, yet engaging presentation, the second being a fun learning activity of some sort, and the third being a quiz to test the knowledge gained by the past two components. We were to design our lessons to address the following learning objectives:
- Understand the fundamentals of biological complexity and its evolution
- Understand, in detail, at least three levels if biological order in a given organism and how it makes the organism unique within a niche.
- Understand human impacts human impacts on the organism and how species conservation is being addresses specific to its traits, behaviors, and niche.
In brainstorming our activity for the fourth graders, we wanted something that would be engaging, fun, motivating, and educational. What better way to fill these requirements than to add a little competition? Together, we designed a game that sets the California Condors and their biggest threats, hunters, against each other in a battle of survival. Below is the description, rules, and resources of the game.
Our third an final component of our lesson was the quiz. Our requirements for this were simple: create a five question, multiple choice quiz that tests information from our presentation. We created this quiz (below) but we put an engaging twist in it. Instead of purely multiple choice questions, we added two visual, picture activity questions that induces thought in a fun way for the kids. See them below!
Presentation Day!
components were left out. These small problems, though, are all to provide a learning experience for my group and I and, in the end, very glad that we were able to do this project for the zoo and with the fourth graders.
The Safari Park
To thank us for creating the presentations to help their cause, the San Diego Zoo foundation funded a team trip to the San Diego Safari Park for us to have fun and see our animals in their protected habitats. Upon going there, we went on a scavenger hunt for the California Condor, Bighorn Sheep, Pronghorn, and several other native and endangered species (the Vaquita porpoise was not there). Below is a slideshow with a few pictures of the adventure! Enjoy!