Students will investigate how human choices spread invasive species, alter native habitats, and affect biodiversity and ecosystem services. Through safe local observations, research, and guidance from family members and community experts, they will evaluate competing solutions and design a practical method for monitoring or reducing environmental harm. Students will create and revise an evidence-based PSA with a CER poster, interactive slideshow, or infographic, using weekly and midway reflections to track changes in their understanding and choices. They will share their final work in a digital gallery walk or virtual premiere, inviting community feedback and action to protect native habitats.

Students will explain how human choices spread invasive species and use field observations, photos, maps, and reliable sources to analyze resulting changes to biodiversity and ecosystem services. Students will evaluate competing solutions and design a practical method to monitor or reduce local environmental impacts. Students will communicate evidence through a CER statement and a clear, actionable PSA, interactive slideshow, infographic, poster, or digital report. Students will seek teacher, family, peer, and community-expert feedback, revise their work, and reflect weekly on how their understanding, habits, and choices changed before sharing their findings in a virtual public exhibition.

Students will create a short PSA explaining how a chosen invasive species spreads, damages ecosystems, and can be addressed through informed community action. They will support it with either an interactive slideshow, infographic, CER poster, or one-page digital report tracing ecosystem changes and practical next steps. Throughout the project, students will maintain weekly field notes and reflections, complete a midway self-reflection, and draft before-and-after claim-evidence-reasoning statements. The final portfolio will include the revised PSA, supporting visual, CER evidence, and a companion reflection describing how the student’s thinking and choices changed.

Students begin an “Invasive Species Detective Day” by examining local photos, distribution maps, and park or yard observations for clues about how invasive species spread and affect native habitats. They then take a supervised outdoor “Human Impact Hotspot Tour,” documenting—without touching or collecting organisms—connections to landscaping, pet release, transported firewood, or outdoor recreation. Students discuss their evidence with a family member or peer, then create an initial CER claim explaining how one human choice may affect biodiversity. They share their claim, field notes, and a question for a park ranger, conservationist, or native plant expert with their teacher.

Students curate a digital Native Habitat Awareness Gallery featuring their PSAs, before-and-after CER products, and reflection slides for families, conservation nonprofit staff, park rangers, and master gardener volunteers. During a virtual “Choices Leave a Footprint” premiere, each student introduces their chosen species, shares one key evidence-based action, and answers audience questions. Guests explore the gallery and provide feedback on scientific accuracy, message clarity, and practical solutions. Students conclude by naming how their thinking changed and one choice their household or community can make to support native habitats.