Owl Creek Sands EarthCache

Essential Lessons:

1.  Do you think humans have impacted this area?  If so, what are some scientific tests that could be done to prove this?
2. Explain some ideas you may have to remediate the current situation of the Owl Creek Sands?

Earth Science Literacy Principles-

Big Idea 9: Humans significiantly alter the Earth

9.5  Human activities alter the natural land surface. Humans use more than one-third of the land’s surface not covered with ice to raise or grow their food. Large areas of land, including delicate ecosystems such as wetlands, are transformed by human land development. These land surface changes impact many Earth processes such as groundwater replenishment and weather patterns.

9.7  Human activities significantly alter the biosphere. Earth is experiencing a worldwide decline in biodiversity—a modern mass extinction—due to loss of habitat area and high rates of environmental change caused by human activities. The rates of extinctions are now comparable to the rates of mass extinctions in the geologic past.

Owl Creek Sands fits well with Big Idea 9, because it illustrates the devastation that humans can leave behind even without intending to do harm.  The occurrences here may not have forced living things into extinction, but it certainly is a fantastic model of how this can happen if humans do not take care of the Earth.

Common misconceptions 

If you excrete waste into water, that the “law of dilution”, will lessen the impact on Earth.

The above is a common belief because often humans do not believe what we cannot see.  The truth is that everything that we deposit in the Earth including atmosphere, can have harmful repercussions in the future.  As technologies advance we are finding out ways to prevent poor choices that would harm the environment.

 Michigan State Science Content Expectations Addressed:

K-7 Standard L.EV: Develop an understanding that plants and animals have observable parts and characteristics that help them survive and flourish in their environments. Understand that fossils provide evidence that life forms have changed over time and were influenced by changes in environmental conditions. Understand that life forms either change (evolve) over time or risk extinction due to environmental changes and describe how scientists identify the relatedness of various organisms based on similarities in anatomical features.

L.EV.M.1 Species Adaptation and Survival- Species with certain traits are more likely than others to survive and have offspring in particular environments. When an environment changes, the advantage or disadvantage of the species’ characteristics can change. Extinction of a species occurs when the environment changes and the characteristics of a species are insufficient to allow survival.

L.EV.05.11 Explain how behavioral characteristics (adaptation, instinct, learning, habit) of animals help them to survive in their environment.

L.EV.05.12 Describe the physical characteristics (traits) of organisms that help them survive in their environment.

L.EV.05.13 Describe how fossils provide evidence about how living things and environmental conditions have changed.

L.EV.05.14 Analyze the relationship of environmental change and catastrophic events (for example: volcanic eruption, floods, asteroid impacts, tsunami) to species extinction.