About the Project
We were funded to develop, in collaboration with Simbiotic, a simulation model that supported students in learning about habitat fragmentation and the ecological impacts of habitat fragmentation on species. We chose habitat fragmentation because it is often a concept that is overlooked in many high school courses. Students often struggle with understanding the nature of habitat fragmentation, its impacts, and the varied geometrical relationship involved when a habitat fragments. To that end our learning goals for the simulation were:
- Students will define habitat fragmentation as the process where a large area of land is divided into two or more fragments or patches
- Students will describe the impact of greater fragmentation (e.g. greater patchiness and less connectivity) on species survival.
Students will analyze data from a model of a fragmented landscape to identify the effect of 1) population size 2) the connectivity of patches, and 3) species type on species survival.
