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A Scavenger Hunt into The Maple Tree Species Diversity

Author(s): Hilton Oyamaguchi1, Richard Leonard2

1. Chestnut Hill College 2. Our Mother of Consolation School

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Summary:
This lesson plan aims to provide students with an interactive experience with nature, focusing on maple trees' diversity and ecological importance in urban forests. Maple trees, belonging to the genus Acer in the family Sapindaceae, are significant…

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This lesson plan aims to provide students with an interactive experience with nature, focusing on maple trees' diversity and ecological importance in urban forests. Maple trees, belonging to the genus Acer in the family Sapindaceae, are significant in temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, especially in Autumn. Students engage with nature through an interactive scavenger hunt using identification cards and the iNaturalist app to document and analyze leaf characteristics. This lesson plan focuses on five common species found on the East Coast: Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum), Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum), Red Maple (Acer rubrum), Norway Maple (Acer platanoides), and Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum). The goal is to enhance students' understanding of tree diversity, leaf identification, evolutionary relationships, and ecological roles. This lesson plan results from the collaboration between Chestnut Hill College and Our Mother of Consolation School in Philadelphia, PA, funded by the Connelly Foundation.

Licensed under CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International according to these terms

Version 1.0 - published on 28 Oct 2024 doi:10.25334/ZK6R-NC49 - cite this

Keywords

  1. Biodiversity
  2. taxonomy
  3. maple
  4. Scavanger Hunt
  5. Leaf Identification

Alignments

  1. Resource Type
  2. Audience Level
  3. Inclusive Pedagogy for Life Science Education
Contents:
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Description

This lesson plan aims to provide students with an interactive experience with nature, focusing on maple trees' diversity and ecological importance in urban forests. It focuses on five key common species: Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum), Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum), Red Maple (Acer rubrum), Norway Maple (Acer platanoides), and Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum). 

Objectives:

  1. Identify the characteristics of five common maple species on the Eastern Coast.

  2. Understand the ecological significance of maples in local ecosystems.

  3. Understand the five maple species' phylogenetic relationships

Context: This lesson plan suits middle school, high school, and introductory undergraduate biodiversity, ecology, and conservation courses. It is also ideal for environmental education events where students can be facilitators.

This lesson plan contains: 

  1. Lesson plan instruction: detailed objectives, and step-by-step instructions. 

  2. Presentation on Google Slides about 5 Maple Species:

  • Introduction to Maple Diversity 

  • Key leaf identification traits like serration, number of lobes, and some ecological aspects

  • Evolutionary relationships among maples species and a simple phylogenetic tree diagram of the five species

3. Maple ID Card PDF Template: Space to press and glue leaves on paper (cardstock), including QR codes linking to digital resources from the iNaturalist webpage for further learning.

 

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