Curriculum Target Grade: 8
Suitable For: Grades 7 – 12
Lake Winnipeg has been named internationally as one of the most endangered lakes in the world, and is on the verge of becoming a “dead” lake within a decade. In this virtual field trip, students affect change using the award-winning Lake Winnipeg: Shared Solutions simulator and learn what the ingredients are for a healthy lake. Explore how humans interact with the lake and the unintended consequences of those actions. Learn about the many things they can do to protect and restore Lake Winnipeg.
Can your students be champions of change?
Save The Lake! gives your students active ways to learn about ecology, chemistry, and limnology through use of the simulation game, visuals, and pre and post workshop activities.
Curriculum Connections
Grade 7 Science Cluster 1: Interactions Within Ecosystems
- 7-1-05: Identify and describe positive and negative examples of human interventions that have an impact on ecological succession or the makeup of ecosystems. Examples: positive — protecting habitats, reintroducing species; negative — preventing natural fires, introducing non-indigenous species, draining wetlands for agriculture or housing.
- 7-1-06: Identify environmental, social, and economic factors that should be considered in the management and preservation of ecosystems. Examples: habitat preservation, recreation, employment, industrial growth, resource development.
- 7-1-07: Propose a course of action to protect the habitat of a particular organism within an ecosystem. Examples: protect the nesting habitat of a given bird in a local wetland.
Grade 8 Science Cluster 4: Water Systems
- 8-4-07: Describe features of the North American drainage system. Include: local and regional watersheds, direction of water flow, continental divide.
- 8-4-12: Identify factors that can cause flooding either individually or in combination. Examples: heavy snow pack, quick thaw, rain in spring, lack of vegetation to remove water through transpiration, frozen ground preventing absorption, agricultural drainage systems, dams, diversions.
- 8-4-13: Provide examples of the way in which technology is used to contain or prevent damage due to flooding, and discuss related positive and negative impacts. Examples: floodway, diversion, dike, levee.
- 8-4-16: Compare the waste-water disposal system within their communities to one used elsewhere. Include: process involved, environmental impact, cost.
- 8-4-17: Identify substances that may pollute water, related environmental and societal impacts of pollution, and ways to reduce or eliminate effects of pollution.
- 8-4-18: Identify environmental, social, and economic factors that should be considered in the management of water resources. Examples: ecosystem preservation, employment, recreation, industrial growth, water quality.
Grade 10 Science Cluster 2: Dynamics of Ecosystems
- S2-1-02: Discuss factors that may disturb biogeochemical cycles. Include: natural events, human activities.
- S2-1-03: Describe bioaccumulation and explain its potential impact on consumers. Examples: bioaccumulations of DDT, lead, dioxins, PCBs, mercury.
- S2-1-07: Describe potential consequences of introducing new species and species extinction on an ecosystem.
- S2-1-09: Explain how the biodiversity of an ecosystem contributes to its sustainability.
- S2-1-10: Investigate how human activities affect an ecosystem and use the decision-making process to propose a course of action to enhance its sustainability. Include: impact on biogeochemical cycling, population dynamics, and biodiversity.
Grade 12 Biology Unit 5: Conservation of Biodiversity
- B12-5-01: Discuss a variety of reasons for maintaining biodiversity. Include: maintaining a diverse gene pool, economic value, and sustainability of an ecosystem
- B12-5-02: Describe strategies used to conserve biodiversity. Examples: habitat preservation, wildlife corridors, species preservation programs, public education.
- B12-5-04: Investigate an issue related to the conservation of biodiversity. Examples: heritage seeds, water quality in Lake Winnipeg, land-use designations, hydroelectric development.
Email [email protected] or call 204-988-0626 for more information and to discuss options for your class, group, or family.
