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9-12 Activities: Wildlife Refuges

National wildlife refuges are lands set aside for wildlife. Some animals live entire lifetimes within a single home refuge. For many others, a refuge might serve as a place to rest and feed during a long migration. Many wildlife refuges serve other needs, too, such as space for military training and grazing of livestock, natural water purification, recreation, and a place where people can retreat from urban environments. You can help your students start to understand what these special places are for and to appreciate the wildlife refuges or similar sanctuaries near their homes.

Rest for the Weary

Students could begin by talking about trips they have taken. Where did they stay when the trip was long? Work in the idea of needing a safe place to sleep and a place to get meals once in a while, as well as gasoline if traveling by car.

Migratory birds make long journeys as well. Using a map of North America, have students decide what routes birds might follow as they travel from Alaska and Canada to Central and South America. Show them the actual flyways on the map here or in the October 1996 issue of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC magazine. Ask them questions about places en route. What must the birds have during their journey? Safe places to rest and food to eat. Where can the birds find food to eat? Since many of them are waterbirds, they need lakes and rivers and marshes. Students can identify refuges that are near heavily populated or urban places and discuss where the migratory birds might stay if there were no such places set aside for them.

Hard Choices

Introduce your students to several endangered species, such as the Florida panther, the California condor, the red wolf, and the vernal tadpole shrimp, which they can learn about here online. Divide the class into small groups and tell them that they have been given a limited amount of federal land and grant money to preserve endangered species. Unfortunately, they only have enough to save one. Have them decide which they would choose and why. If a group cannot agree, ask the students in it to explain why not. Point out that some animals require much larger home ranges than others in order to survive. Did this figure in their decision? How much priority did they give to an animal’s public popularity? Did the groups which reached consensus consider the dependence of species on one another within plant and animal communities?

Next, ask the groups to consider whether priority should be given to endangered plants or endangered animals in funding research and setting aside land.

These discussions will, we hope, encourage students to consider the important role each individual species plays in a larger ecosystem, and to recognize that both plants and animals are essential.

If possible, lead a class field trip to explore a nearby wildlife refuge and meet some of the people who work there.

To the Geography Education Program.

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