Activity:  Create concept maps related to issues of toxins in the environment.

Pre-Activity:  Reading and subsequent list of issues from whale toxin article.

Do Now:  Arrange in groups and make a list of the main headings of the issues.

Aim:  Rearrange our understanding from a sequential list to an integrated network.

Major Assignment:  Understand that seals live in a world dominated by humans with associated consequences.

Processes, Skills, Goals:  Listing, networking related items, re-aligning perspective to the view of another organism.

Content:  Geography of environmental degradation and remediation, water as delivery mechanism, and concept mapping.

Instructions:  Ask students to rearrange their listed items into broader themes, then draw lines to show how each item is connected to each other.  These should include money, power (choice, decision-making), needs (income, food, habitat), wants (luxury), instinct (reproduction, migration) among others students may surprise you with.

Materials:  Paper, writing implements.

Guiding Questions:  See Concept Mapping questions from GK-12 notes.

Homework:  Since toxins affect seals, what do we need to know about whale and seal anatomy?  Is it different from ours?  How?  Why?  Research how toxins get into seals in our community for 30 minutes and write for 30 minutes.