Lesson Plans
Lake Champlain Sea Grant's Watershed Alliance has developed multiple lesson plans that the Watershed Alliance team uses in programming and wants to share with classrooms across the Lake Champlain basin. The lesson plans below are meant for students at a 9-12 grade level.
- Lake Champlain’s Lakemounts: Are they Freshwater Biodiversity Hotspots?
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Author: Sabrina Koetter (link email)
Grade Level: 9-12
Lesson Overview: This lesson highlights ongoing research in Lake Champlain that explores how lakemounts may influence the lake ecosystem. This lesson draws on the effects seamounts have on deep ocean environments. We explore biological-physical interactions using a physical model (upwelling) and infer how various organisms may be adapted to thrive in various lake environments (nearshore, offshore, or lakemounts). The upwelling demonstration is adapted from the NOAA Explorations “Investigation: Seamounts and Biological Productivity” lesson.
- Turning Lakemount Research into Policy
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Author: Holly Francis
Grade Level: 9-12
Lesson Overview: Dr. Bianca Possamai and her team at UVM are researching lakemounts in Lake Champlain, and these areas are shown to be important biodiversity hotspots. Taking newfound research and addressing it with necessary policy is often a lengthy and fraught task. This lesson plan and subsequent deliverable is focused on understanding scientific research, communicating that research, utilizing leverage points, and exercising public participation in government.
- Correlations of Hg Concentrations in Local Dragonfly Nymphs: Prepping for a Poster Session
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Author: Matthew Yoskowitz
Grade Level: 9-12
Lesson Overview: Students will be utilizing their prior knowledge of watersheds, energy flow and matter cycling within an ecosystem and bioaccumulation of methyl mercury. Various modality methods over the course of their school year will allow them to generate a unique research poster that will then be presented in front of a community audience.
- Establishing a Student-Science Stream Monitoring Program
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Author: Richard Hathaway
Grade Level: 9-12
Lesson Overview: Students will be actively involved in sampling aquatic macroinvertebrates from a local stream or river, and then identifying the organisms using pictorial keys. Based on the relative pollution sensitivities of each macroinvertebrate group, overall stream health will be determined using a spreadsheet template or a simpler qualitative data sheet. Mercury levels in sampled dragonflies is an additional activity that can connect student data to a growing national data set.
Looking for something specific or want to register for one of our in-person programs? Reach out to our team at watershd [at] uvm.edu