Ecosystem Consequences of Town Decisions: Agriculture Version

Lesson Preparation:

1. Prepare one packet for each town. The packet should include the student instructions, graph paper(s), town descriptions, starting number of icons and money, thinking and decision charts, county decision choices.
2. Print and laminate extra icons and money, to make a “bank”.
3. Make one copy of the Town Choices for each town. 
4. Make copies as necessary of the Ultimate Greening Solution worksheet, assessments, and rubrics. 
5. Either print the large watershed map, or draw on a large poster paper. 

Starting Icons/Money:

Lesson

Optional: Use the introductory powerpoint, available online, to introduce the basics of the game.  

Break up the students into 5 groups, give them their packets and ask them to open the instruction booklet and begin the game accordingly.  You will need groups of at least 2-3 students per group.  Ideally, you will have enough students in each group so that you can have a Reader, Recorder, Graph-keeper, Reporter, and Banker (if there fewer students in each group, just double up on roles).

Part 1

1. Students should carefully read through their town description and fill in the constraints and considerations table, which is designed to help them make decisions appropriate for their town (even if they personally feel otherwise).  Visit each group to make sure they have understood their town “identity”.  For younger students, creating a town slogan/cheer helps with this aspect. 
2. Be sure that they fill in the first graph which represents where they stand before making any choices. Older students can draw the bar graphs, while younger students may benefit from having large graphs which they visualize with the help of the cards.  Positive and negatives are represented on the same graph, but with different colored cards.  Poor quality=red colored icons, while the white icons are positive or good quality of water, air, biodiversity, and health.  Have the Reporter share their graphs and provide background information to the class about their town. 
3. Students will now make decisions on water, air, and land in their town – the Reader should read each choice to the group.  The Recorder should write down all the options on the “Thinking Chart”, and make final decisions on the “Decisions Chart”, which needs to be signed off on by a teacher.  At this point, you can check in with each group to make sure they are keeping the main goals of the game in mind, and not just focusing on the numbers of icons or amount of money they will gain or lose.  Asking students “Why did you make that decision?” or “How will that improve your ecosystem?” will help them think through their choices. 
4. Once students have made their decisions, they will visit the Banker (an adult or a trusted student) to get the money they need and the cards that have changed as a result of their decisions. 
5. Students should fill in the next graph before going to the whole-class activity of looking at the watershed map. 
6. All cards should get the name (or the first letter) of the town written on the back with wet-erase marker.  This will help identify the pollution in the next step. 
7. As a formative assessment task, ask each student to respond to the following prompt:

• • How do your choices affect the environment, both positively and negatively?  Explain. 
  • What are some possible impacts on human health as a result of your choices? 
  • Based on how water and air moves in your county, predict at least two possible impacts of your choices on other towns. 

8. Ask the Reporter in each group to explain to the class the decisions made by his/her town, and the reasons for those choices.  An optional graphic organizer is provided for students to take notes on each town’s decisions. 

Part 2

1. Gather students around the large county map, where they should place their cards.   All icons should have the town name on the back of the originating town, so that students will know where the pollution came from. 
2. Starting with the concept of watersheds, remind them what direction water flows and then begin moving water pollution cards in that direction, while removing human health and biodiversity cards.  Move one red card at a time; this portion of the game will be different each time as students make different decisions.  A red water quality card will affect downstream towns by reducing their biodiversity and human health.  You can decide “how much” each red card will affect each downstream (or downwind) town.  You can also add “pollution” from outside the county if the towns were environmentally friendly and didn’t create any pollution. 
3. Do the same for the airshed by moving air pollution cards along the direction of the prevailing winds while removing human health and biodiversity cards that the pollution crosses on its path.   
4. Students now take all the cards that are in their town back with them, and create a new graph accordingly.  Since all icons have town names on the back, students will know who caused pollution in their town.  This will help them think about who should reduce pollution at the county-level decision making process.
5. A teacher-led discussion at this point helps connect the “game” to reality.  We suggest the following prompts:

• • Connecting to MS-ESS 3.C: What are the ecological and health consequences for the entire watershed (and airshed) of the choices made by the individual towns?  Which towns are the ecological “winners”, and which are the “losers”?  Why? 
  • Systems and system models: How is this game similar to, and how is it different from the real world?  For example, in the game, pollution moves one time, but in real life, it happens constantly. The game also simplifies the movement of pollution, ignoring groundwater pathways and atmospheric deposition.

Part 3 – County Decisions

1. Important:  When each town calculates the amount of money they have 5 years in the future, you may or may not want to make them pay back the loan.  These are all interest free loans.  Loan repayment is subject to the teacher’s discretion as the “banker”.  We have found that if no towns have money after five years, they often get too discouraged to want to continue the game. 
2. Students now split up using the jigsaw method into county level decision making teams; one representative from each town meets with the other towns.  In these county level groups, they will choose which county-level decision is best OR spend time researching and developing a greening initiative. 
3. A powerpoint is provided to help students think about different greening solutions.  Depending on the amount of time in your class, you can provide students with the “County Decision Choices” handout, which provides several different options for greening, or ask students to complete the “Ultimate Greening Solution” worksheet, which walks students through the process of developing a solution and creating a presentation for the class. 
4. Allow students an appropriate amount of time depending on the option you have selected.  Students usually need about 20 minutes to discuss the provided options, and up to a week to research and develop a presentation on their own greening solution. 
5. Each County Committee makes a presentation to the class about their chosen/designed option. 
6. This last part of the game often lends itself to heavy debate. It is important to stress the real-world context in this portion. The decision they are fighting for should not just depend on number of cards, but the concepts of watershed and airsheds, as well as the what people in their town would support or not. This is also an opportunity to bring in any regional issues or decisions (a proposed wind farm or increase in farms, for example) in your area to help bring this game into the real world of the students.
7. As a class, the students should discuss how much money each town should provide for the greening solution, and how the ecosystem services and human health cards might change as a result. 

Pre and post assessment

There are two types of assessments, either a pre assessment and/or a reflection. The reflection determines the level at which students reflect on their impact on watersheds, airsheds, and ecosystem services.  Several sample rubrics are also provided: one for the reflection, one for the presentation, and one for the entire activity.  The pre assessment can be used again as a post assessment to determine students’ ability to connect several environmental issues, and thus describe the multifaceted consequences of one decision.