Name:____________________________ Hour: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Date:___________________
Is Extinction an Option?
Introduction:
Some animals have “fan clubs” that are groups of concerned citizens that join forces to protect
the animals from extinction. Some animals have just the opposite: groups of people that wish
they didn’t exist. Most animals are in between, some go extinct without anyone even knowing.
In this activity, you will pick an animal, decide if it is important in the ecosystem and create a
brochure to share your views with your class.
Procedures:
1. Choose an animal that is different than everyone else in class. Your teacher will make a list
on the board of the animals different students are choosing so no one researches the same animal.
2. Design a brochure with information about your animal. You may use resources from our
class textbook or from the internet. Make the work your own by limiting direct quotations from
websites and giving credit when you do so.
3. Your brochure should have the following outline.
A. Side #1: Should include the name of the animal, a picture of it, what it eats in its normal
environment and what eats it.
B. Side #2: What is happening to the population size of your animal? Is it going up or down?
Why is it going up or down? It might be nice to include a population graph for your animal if
possible. What are the factors that are causing the population of your animal to change?
Describe them in detail.
C. Side #3: Predict the effect of losing this species on the food chain and other reasons why it
might be important to gain or lose it in the environment. Think about the organisms that eat your
animal what is going to happen to their population? Think about the organisms that your animal
eats what is going to happen to their population? Outside of the direct population changes look
at the entire food web and discuss what will happen to every organism in that food web if your
animal population increased or decreased in size.
D. Side #4: Describe steps that could be taken to encourage the survival of the species or its
disappearance. Are there groups out there trying to save your animal already? Do you think if
your animal was endangered there would be groups out there trying to save it? Why or why not?
E. Side #5: Include any extra information you learned about your animal while you were
researching it. Include interesting facts that you were not previously aware.
F. Side #6: Include a collage of pictures that show your animal in its natural environment.
Additional Instructions:
When creating your brochure it is important to realize how you are going to fold your brochure.
If I were you I would click on “page layout” and change the orientation to “landscape” and click
on columns and change it to “3.” This will set up a brochure type template for you to use. The
second important thing you need to realize is your layout of your various sides. Keep in mind
when you fold your brochure you will need to make sure side #1 is on the outside and sides 2-4
are on the inside. If you follow the outline below you will have everything where it needs to be
when you print it off.
Side #5
Side #6
Side #1
Side #2
Side #3
Side #4
Also when you print it off you can either feed the paper back in your printer to have it print on
both sides or simply tape or glue the two sides together.
Questions
1. Did your view of the importance of your animal change as you did your research? Why?
2. What was one thing you learned about your animal that you didn’t already know?
Follow-Up Questions
Together as a class we are going to be looking at each other’s animal brochures. Answer the
following questions after looking at the class brochures.
1. What seems to be causing the disappearance of most animals?
2. Which brochure did you find the best? Why?
3. Is extinction an option? Is it ok for any of the animals you looked at to go extinct? Why?