Lesson 3

Biodiversity

In this lesson, students explore the concept of biodiversity. The lesson begins with an unplugged activity to define biodiversity by discussing variety and its importance in a healthy ecosystem. Students then discover how to simulate biodiversity in Scratch by using cloning to create copies of sprites. Students engage in a debugging activity based on a real-world scenario to correct problems with sprite variety and visibility in Scratch. Finally, students use count-controlled loops and randomization to create a randomized field of flowers in their Scratch programs.

school
Grade 8
local_library
Subject Science
schedule
Length of lesson 50 minutes

Learning objective

Students will represent biodiversity through cloning sprite objects.

Standards

CSTA Standards

  • 2-AP-12: Design and iteratively develop programs that combine control structures, including nested loops and compound conditionals.
  • 2-AP-13: Decompose problems and subproblems into parts to facilitate the design, implementation, and review of programs

NGSS Standards

  • MS-LS2-2: Construct an explanation that predicts patterns of interactions among organisms across multiple ecosystems.

Multi-lesson projects

Students will use the same project across multiple lessons.

Lesson contents

Scratch projects

Pollination patrol

Student resource

Multi-lesson project

Students will use the same project across multiple lessons