Overharvested Resources Activity

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In this activity, students will:

• READ up to 8 provided news articles about overexploited species, including Himalayan yew, bluefin tuna, oysters, elephants, frankincense, pangolins, and Burmese pythons.  We assign them as STATIONS.
• ORGANIZE the information in a graphic organizer
• ANSWER text-dependent analysis questions (1 set for each article)

Includes both PRINT and GOOGLE SLIDES options to assign!

This activity is versatile and can be assigned in different ways:

• Individual news articles/questions for homework or sub plans
• Present the articles and questions in stations for a 2-3 day activity
• As a group project – each group gets one article and then presents it to the class

To save copies (and your time!), make just a few copies of each reading, and have students rotate through one reading at a time and return it to the pile when completed. You can also save the readings year-to-year to save time and copies next year. Or, use the digital provided Google Slides version of this resource instead.

Teacher Notes:

• INCLUDES ANSWER KEY
• Please note: This overharvested resources activity is NOT editable.
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Related Standards:

• NGSS MS-LS2-1: Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for the effects of resource availability on organisms and populations of organisms in an ecosystem.
• NGSS MS-LS2-4: Construct an argument supported by empirical evidence that changes to physical or biological components of an ecosystem affect populations.