Eco-Detectives: The Peril River Problem
Go to the following website:
http://www.biomanbio.com/GamesandLabs/EcoGames/ecodetectives%20peril%20river.html
1. The Problem:
a. Species Diversity and Abundance
i. What is Biodiversity—
ii. Which picture has the highest biodiversity?
iii. Has biodiversity increased or decreased?
iv. Which species have decreased in abundance since 1950?
v. What can you conclude about species abundance and diversity in Peril River?
b. Water Quality
i. What makes the water green?
ii. Which water sample has more algae? What are algae?
iii. Which water sample has more bacteria? What are these bacteria doing in the water?
iv. What is the average dissolved oxygen for Site 1?
v. What is the average dissolved oxygen for Site 2?
vi. What can you conclude about dissolved oxygen in the Peril River watershed?
vii. Which site is more likely to have fish based upon dissolved oxygen levels?
viii. How does dissolved oxygen affect living organisms in the river?
2. Investigate and Experiment
a. What is Hypothesis 1?
i. What are nitrates?
ii. Why is this a problem?
iii. At what point are nitrate levels highest?
iv. Where is the excess nitrate fertilizer probably coming from?
v. What is your conclusion about nitrates and the Peril River?
b. What is Hypothesis 2?
i. What are acids and are the harmful?
ii. What are the results from the Peril River?
iii. Is there evidence that this is the pollution? Why or why not?
c. What is Hypothesis 3?
i. What are pesticides?
ii. Why can they be a problem?
iii. What site had the highest concentration of pesticide?
iv. Where is the pesticide pollution probably coming from?
v. What pesticide was present?
vi. Why is this bad for the Farm?
vii. What happens to DDT in animal tissue?
viii. Which animal has the highest concentration of DDT?
ix. Why is that so? What is this term called?
x. How specifically are these animals hurt by DDT?
3. Restoration
a. What recommendation(s) would you make to restore the Peril River Watershed? What is their cost?
Write a sentence that explains the reason why you made this choice.
b.
c.
d.
e.
What happened to species abundance in 2052?
What happened to biodiversity by 2022?
How effective has your two part plan been at addressing species abundance and biodiversity?
How has water quality changed in site six since your restoration efforts?
f.
How have dissolved oxygen amounts changed in site six since your restoration efforts?
g. Compared with before how has monitoring nitrate runoff and removing DDT affected the Peril River
Watershed?
Tell me your scores:
Overall:______
The problem:______
Reading/Comprehension:_____
Investigate and Experiment:_____
Analyzing Data:_______
The Restoration:_____
Creating Graphs:_____