Title: Habitat Creation – Brush Piles for Life!
Time Frame: 30 minutes for Preparation; 60 minutes for Action; 30 minutes for Reflection
Lesson Overview:_
Students will learn the benefits of building brush piles to create safe shelter and healthy habitat
for various local animals. They will learn how to safely and effectively construct brush piles
before working in small groups to create habitat at identified areas on the outdoor education site.
At the conclusion of the lesson, students will reflect on their learning and SSL work.
Teacher Background:
Content:
All animals require food, water, shelter, and space to survive. We can help create safe and
sufficient shelter for animals. Brush piles provide homes and excellent hiding places for
mammals like rabbits, skunks, raccoons, woodchucks, chipmunks, as well as birds like white
throated sparrows, juncos, and ruffed grouse. If these animals (which are lower on the food
chain) survive, then their predators will also have a better chance of survival.
Ensuring that these small animals survive helps maintain equilibrium in the ecosystem. The
brush piles offer safety and opportunity not just for small animals, but also for other organisms
such as fungi, insects, and sensitive shade plants. One additional benefit is that as these piles
decompose, healthy rich soil will form that will support the growth of native plants.
In summary, creating habitat for wildlife encourages the survival of our native local species; in
this way, habitat creation fosters biodiversity.
Construction:
1. A finished brush pile could be 10’ wide and 25’ long.
2. It should be dense enough to protect the animal while still allowing wildlife to
easily run inside – be careful not to create a pile that is too compact!
3. Don’t worry too much about the exact size of the brush pile, as smaller brush
piles can be of benefit to birds, lizards, chipmunks, and other small animals.
4. A brush pile has two parts:
a. Supporting Base (1 and 2 in image): formed from two layers of
logs, evenly spaced, to allow easy access.
i. Place alternate layers of logs at right angles to one
another to form the base. These logs should be at least
6” in diameter and spaced 6-10” apart.
b. Pile of Plant Material on Top (3 and 4 in image)
i. Place the small trees, branches, and other brush over the
base using enough material to form a tepee or moundshaped pile about 5’ tall.
ii. Pile the brush on the base so that the center is very
dense, but the edges are loose. This will shelter the
animals and still allow them to easily come and go.
Enduring Understanding & Essential Questions:
Enduring Understanding:
Natural resources need protection and conservation in a given environment.
Biodiversity is a natural resource.
Essential Question:
How can people help maintain and increase biodiversity in their local environment?
Next Generation Science Standards:
Science and Engineering
Practices
Engaging in Argument from
Evidence
Evaluate competing design
solutions based on jointly
developed and agreed-upon
design criteria.
Disciplinary Core Ideas
Crosscutting Concepts
Interdependent Relationships
in Ecosystems
Stability and Change
In any ecosystem, organisms and
populations with similar
requirements for food, water
oxygen, or other resources may
compete with each other for
limited resources, access to
which consequently constrains
their growth and reproduction.
Small changes in one part of a
system might cause large
changes in another part.
Biodiversity describes the variety
of species found in Earth’s
terrestrial and oceanic
ecosystems. The completeness or
integrity of an ecosystem’s
biodiversity is often used as a
measure of its health.
Performance Expectation
MS-LS2-5
Evaluate competing design solutions for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services.
(Clarification Statement: Example of ecosystem services could include water purification,
nutrient recycling, and prevention of soil erosion. Examples of design solution constraints could
include scientific, economic, and social considerations.)
Maryland Environmental Literacy Standards
STANDARD 1 ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
The student will investigate and analyze environmental issues ranging from local to global perspectives and develop
and implement a local action project that protects, sustains, or enhances the natural environment.
Topic A: Environmental Issue Investigation
Topic B. Action Component
Indicator 1: Use recommendation(s) to develop and implement an environmental action plan.
Indicator 2: Communicate, evaluate and justify personal views on environmental issue and alternate ways
to address them.
Indicator 3: Analyze the effectiveness of the action plan in terms of achieving the desired outcomes.
STANDARD 4 POPULATIONS, COMMUNITIES AND ECOSYSTEMS
The student will use physical, chemical, biological, and ecological concepts to analyze and explain the
interdependence of humans and organisms in populations, communities and ecosystems.
Topic B: Population Dynamics
Indicator 1: Analyze the growth or decline of populations and identify a variety of responsible factors.
Topic C: Community and Ecosystem Dynamics
Indicator 1: Explain how the interrelationships and interdependencies of organisms and populations
contribute to the dynamics of communities and ecosystems.
5E Lesson: Healthy Habitat for All
Engage: (Preparation)
Option A – Watch the Prezi with students. Have students attempt to
answer the questions presented on the Prezi.
https://prezi.com/sfxvngjlzomk/where-do-you-want-tolive/
Option B – Ask these or similar questions:
What type of home would you like to live in?
What makes that home so enticing, useful or special?
Where do animals live?
Why do they need homes?
What makes a habitat safe for animals? Prey? Predators?
Plants?
Explain: (Preparation)
Preparation Notes for the
Teacher:
Before you come to OE:
1.
Introduce SSL using the
SSL power point, and
introduce this Brush
Pile project to your
students using our
Prezi. (Explain)
2.
Meet with your
coordinator ahead of
time to talk about good
locations for this SSL
lesson.
3.
Provide safety
guidelines to students
about poison ivy:
Wear long sleeves and
long pants
Remember “leaves of
three, let it be" is a
good rule of thumb
Leave hairy vines
alone, too!
Poison ivy is active in
winter – avoid hairy
vines
Discuss the connection between creating brush piles and supporting a
healthy ecosystem. Include what kinds of animals may use the brush
pile, why the brush pile is a good home, why these animals are
important to the equilibrium of the ecosystem, and strategies for
building the best brush piles. (See Teacher Background)

Explore: (Action)

Walk students to the location(s).
1. Show students the existing brush piles that they will help
improve, or the specific spaces that are to be covered with
brush.
2. Review the techniques, safety, and instructions for creating
brush piles:
a. Gather branches and sticks that have fallen off of the
trees and carry them to the brush piles
b. Use a partner to help carry larger branches
c. Watch where you’re walking so you don’t injure other
students!
d. Make the piles tall and compact rather than wide and
spread out.
e. Place any trash you find in the trash bag.
f. Explain and show what poison ivy looks like.
3. Divide students into groups and assign each group a specific
area.
4. Students create the brush piles! (Supervise closely.)


At Outdoor Ed:
Gather equipment:
1. Work Gloves
2. Trash bags
Check the targeted
location(s) in advance.
Determine how to group
students and which adults
will be responsible for
each group.
Bring trash bags back to
the OE center
Evaluate: (Reflection)
Prepare students for their writing by asking them to talk with an
elbow partner about:
 What did you learn about habitat creation that you did not
know before?
 How did this SSL work help the environment? (i.e. what need
did your service address)
 Who or what benefitted from this work (service)?
Have students write their answers to the following SSL form
questions in their notebooks:
1. What did you do?
2. What need did your service address?
3. Who benefitted from your service?
4. What did you learn about yourself?
5. How was this experience connected to something you learned
in a class at school? (For example, English, Mathematics,
Science, Social Studies, Arts, Physical Education, Health,
Foreign Language, etc.)
Extend:
 Build habitat structures such as brush piles at other locations
 Try building other types of habitat structures such as bird
houses.
Examples of Good
Locations:
 Forest edges
 Field corners
 Margins between
land and marsh
 Edge of ponds (for
amphibians)
Hint:
Colored flagging may
help to designate areas
for brush pile
construction.