Overview
Authors and Collaborators:
- Natalie Marie Scott (Hupa): Basket weaver, teacher of Science 12 years, Cultural Studies, and Natural Resources at Hoopa Valley High School since 2018.
- Melodie George Moore (Hupa): Cultural Practitioner, teacher of English and Hupa Language 32 years at Hoopa Valley High School.
- Lesson partner: Rebecca Lowry, Humboldt County Office of Education
Grade Level: 6-8
Subjects: English Language Arts, Science
Time Frame: 5 class sessions.
Curriculum Themes:
- Cultural Strengths
- Relationship to Place
- Cross Curricular Integration
Learning Goals
- Students will construct a scientific argument based on evidence that changes to physical or biological components of an ecosystem affect populations including organisms in the example ecosystem featuring a tanoak tree.
- Students will play a game as a form of simulation to gather evidence for the effects of resource availability on organisms and populations of organisms in an ecosystem.
- Students will integrate information presented in different media or formats to develop a coherent understanding of how biotic and abiotic factors affect the organisms in an ecosystem.
- Students will analyze and interpret data and information to provide evidence for the effects of healthy tanoak availability on organisms and populations of organisms in an ecosystem.
- Students will integrate information presented in different media or formats to develop a coherent understanding of the importance of Tanoak acorns to the ecosystem they are a part of and what they need to grow.
Unit Overview
This week-long interactive unit invites students to explore the ecology of the Tanoak tree and the interconnected relationships that shape a Northern California forest ecosystem. Designed as a simulation game with a printable game board and game pieces, the unit encourages students to investigate how biotic and abiotic factors—including resource availability, environmental conditions, and changes to physical and biological components of an ecosystem—affect the growth and survival of organisms and populations.
Building on the foundational knowledge developed in K’iwinya’n: The Preferred Acorn of Hupas (Na), students explore the stages of Tanoak growth and the important role Tanoak acorns play within the ecosystem. As students progress through the game, they encounter events and conditions that influence the health and availability of Tanoak resources, using the simulation to gather evidence and develop scientific arguments about how ecosystem changes affect living organisms.
Throughout the unit, students integrate information from multiple media and formats, analyze data, and consider the relationships among Tanoak trees, wildlife, plants, fungi, and the broader forest ecosystem. The game-based approach provides an engaging way for students to apply ecological concepts while developing a deeper understanding of why healthy Tanoak trees are important to biodiversity in Northern California.
Teacher Background
Tanoak (Notholithocarpus densiflorus) grows in coastal forests in Oregon and California and plays
an important ecological role in the redwood forest ecosystem. Its medium-height trees add a second
canopy to the complex architecture of an old-growth redwood forest, creating more niches for
diverse species. And its nutritious acorns feed bears, deer, rodents and birds.
For now, tanoak is still abundant. But where redwood forests show signs of the emerging disease
called “sudden oak death,” the species has been decimated. Kevin L. O’Hara, University of
California, Berkeley, silviculture professor and PhD candidate Ben Ramage are studying what
happens to redwood ecosystems in places where tanoaks have disappeared.
In a 2008 study funded by Save the Redwoods League, O’Hara and Ramage documented
numerous changes caused by tanoak’s demise—among them more sunlight, deadwood and
herbaceous species on the forest floor. The study’s most important finding, however, had to do with
the forests’ inability to regenerate trees of any kind. “If a tanoak clump dies and it leaves an opening
in the forest, we’re not seeing any new trees come into that opening,” O’Hara said.
The tanoak tree is an important species in maintaining the biodiversity of plants, animals, and fungi
within an ecosystem.
(Excerpt from Ramage, B. and Ohara, K. from Save the Redwoods League Project, 2008.)