Chapter 4: Wetland Habitat For Brant

Understanding the kinds of habitat that brant utilize is essential. This chapter will give students the opportunity to research the different places where brant go during their lifetime.

Subject:
science, language arts
Duration:
30 minutes
Group size:
class
Setting:
classroom
Topics:
communication, creativity, habitat for wildlife, wetland processes

Wetland Metaphors
(designed for younger students)

Objectives:
Students will be able to create metaphors to help them understand the basic conditions and processes in a wetland.

Method:
Students compare familiar objects to wetland functions.

NOTE: a metaphor is a direct comparison between two things. It gives a vivid image through direct comparison. For example, "books are windows of thought" and "she is a tower of strength" are just two examples. In this activity, a variety of objects represent the characteristics of wetlands.

Object

Metaphoric Wetland Functions
picture of hotel from a magazine

serves as a stopover on their long trip
Sponge

absorbs excess water (flooding)
Pillow

is a resting place for migratory brant
Egg Beater

mixes ingredients (nutrients and oxygen into fresh and saltwater wetlands)
Cradle

shelters and protects (like a nursery for young brant
Sieve or Strainer

strains debris and suspen- ded material from water
Can of Soup

provides food

Materials:

Procedure:
1. Teacher prepares the "Mystery Metaphor Container" (pillowcase, bag, or box) containing the above list of objects.

2. Begin by explaining to the students what a metaphor is. Tell students that objects can be used to represent wetland functions. Metaphors offer a dramatic way of drawing a comparison. A metaphor gives a vivid image through direct comparison. For example: "Frank is a chip off the old block" or "She's a barrel of laughs." Explain that everything in the container can be a metaphor that relates to the functions of wetlands.

3. Have the students divide into as many groups as there are objects in the bag. Announce that when it is their turn, you want a representative from each group to draw an object from the container.

4. Have the designated student reach into the container and withdraw one object. When each group has an object, give them time to describe and demonstrate the relationships between their object and the wetland. Encourage the students to build on each other's ideas and to come up with a group consensus on relationship of the object to a wetland. You can assist by strengthening their connections. Allow each group to share these ideas with the class.

5. Ask the students to summarize the major roles that wetlands perform in contributing to a healthy habitat for wildlife. Ask them if their own attitudes about wetlands are different as a result of doing this activity. If yes, how?

Adapted from: Aquatic Project Wild. Western Regional Environmental Education Council. 1987.

Wetland Reporting

Subject:
science, language arts
Duration:
one class period
Group size:
any
Setting:
classroom
Topics:
habitat for waterfowl and other animals, wildlife ecology, wetland types

Objectives:
1. Students will determine what type of wetland(s) they have in their area.

2. Students will report on one of the local wetland areas, including reasons why it's a wetland, and its importance to the area.

Background:

What is a Wetland?

There are different definitions of wetlands, as would, say, a biologist. In general, a wetland is an area that has waterlogged soils and is often depending on the perspective of the person using the word. For example, a hydrologist, or one who studies the water cycle, would define a wetland in different terms covered with shallow water at least part of the year. Bog, quagmire, muskeg, tundra, swamp, marsh, estuary... these are just some of the many names for areas that are recognized as wetlands.

What are the Functions of Wetlands?

1) Freshwater wetlands often act as buffers in times of both flood and drought

-Absorbing overflow from flooding, wetlands often swell with runoff water and reduce potential downstream effects of flooding.

-In drier periods, wetlands hold precious moisture after smaller bodies of water have disappeared.

2) Both freshwater and coastal wetlands are nurseries for countless life forms. They contain a great diversity of plants and animals and provide habitat for migratory waterfowl.

3) Wetlands have the unique ability to trap and neutralize sewage waste, allowing silt to settle and promoting the decomposition of many toxic substances. Yet it must be remembered that as remarkable as they are, the actions and capacities of wetlands are still vulnerable to the devastation of human carelessness and pollution.

What Are Some Types of Wetlands?

1) Tundra: Tundra is the vast, treeless land of northern climates (in the upper regions of Alaska and Canada) where the temperature is very cold in winter and cool in summer. The wind almost always blows. No trees grow on the tundra, and all the plants grow very close to the ground where it is warmer.

Many people think the tundra is flat. Once you've walked on the tundra you know that there are lots of little mounds of grass and sedges. The low spots are wet or even filled with water, forming little ponds or lakes. The soil is squishy. Even where the ground looks high and dry, it isn't.

Very little rain or snow falls on the tundra each year. It stays wet because of the permanently frozen ground, called permafrost, under the top soil layer. The permafrost does not allow the rain or snow to drain through the frozen soil, and permafrost doesn't thaw, even in summer. Tundra is a type of wetland in Alaska and the upper regions of Canada used by Brant during breeding seasons to nest.

2) Estuary: Estuaries occur where salt water from the sea meets and mixes with fresh water from rivers and streams. These waters include bays, sounds, inlets, bayous, and sloughs.

The combination of salt and freshwater produces a unique and fertile environment that supports a diversity of plant and animal life. Estuaries are among the most productive natural places on earth.

More than two-thirds of the fish and shellfish commercially harvested spend part or all of their lives in estuaries. For the Brant, estuaries are important areas for growing plentiful supplies of eelgrass, the brant's main food supply.

Estuaries can be found along the Pacific Coast flyway and are used as stopover areas for the Brant during their spring and fall migration.

3) Marshes: Marshes, or bogs, can fill broad, flat areas or be contained in tiny pockets surrounded by higher land. They can share space on the edges of ponds, lakes or rivers. Movement of water through a marsh brings nutrients. When water drains from a marsh, it carries nutrients to the next wetland or to the ocean.

There are two kinds of marshes: inland fresh water marshes and coastal salt water marshes. The inland marshes obtain fresh water directly from rain or snow, or from creeks and streams. Tides bring salt water to the coastal marshes, located in estuaries. Both inland fresh water marshes and coastal salt water marshes have plants which are adapted to the type of water in the marsh. Both inland freshwater marshes and coastal salt water marshes are beneficial to the lifecycles of Brant, providing wintering and feeding grounds in the inlets of the Baja Peninsula, and breeding grounds along freshwater rivers in the northern regions of Alaska and Canada.

Method:
Students determine what type of wetlands are in their area. With this data they put together a news story on a local wetland area.

Materials:
notebooks and pencils
copies of wetland types for each group

Procedure:
1. Break the class into groups of 5 or 6.

2. Write the word wetland on the chalkboard. Have the students, in their groups, brainstorm and write in their notebooks about what comes to mind when they hear the word "wetland". The words can be anything: nouns, feelings, verbs, etc... as long as the group can relate it to wetlands. Take time for students to share some of their more interesting words out loud in class, and then:

a. Discuss the proper meaning of wetlands.

b. Discuss the three different types of wetlands that the brant utilize (make copies of the sheets for each group). Have students pick 2 animals from each of the 3 types of wetlands and write on the back of the sheets 2 things that each of the animals uses from that particular wetland.

For example: From the Saltmarsh: 1. the great blue heron uses the water and fish as food, and 2. the raccoon uses the grasses for shelter and uses dead or living animals for food.

3. Next, have each group brainstorm about their surrounding community and the types of wetlands they have in their area. They may not know what types they have around them, but allow them to brainstorm places near them (or, have a local fish and game expert come talk to your class about wetlands).

4. Have each group pick a local wetland or an area they believe to be a wetland. They should outline the reasons why that area is a wetland, and think of reasons for its importance, what the use of the wetland is, and what utilizes the wetland.

5. Once students have identified what type(s) of wetlands they have in their area, compile a short class report about their wetland (its importance, uses, and location to their school, and send it to the other project sites on the internet, including anything that students think may be threatening to the long-term viability of their local wetlands.

Extension for Older Students:
Teacher collects samples of Zostera, Ulva, or Smithora from estuary. Students view the algae with microscopes in the classroom. Using the class’ biology books, students identify components of a cell and look for other organisms that may be living on the algae (are the brant eating the algae, or the organisms that live on the algae for nutritional value?).