Environmental Detectives

by Kevin Beals

This substantial unit for grades 5-8 uses the mystery “hook” so successfully employed in other GEMS units, such as the very popular Mystery Festival, to engage students in exploring a range of crucial environmental issues.

The “crime” is a mysterious environmental calamity—a fish die-off that began five years ago. The crime scene is the “Gray Area,” a watershed encompassing forests, a city, a town, a coast, three rivers, a lake, and a pond. Student sleuths investigate the many potential causes of the fish dying, including chlorine pollution, acid rain, erosion and sediment pollution, predator-prey relationships, phosphate pollution and algal blooms, and oil pollution.

Environmental Detectives provides students with the opportunity to grapple with a complex, interdisciplinary scientific problem. They hear statements of various “suspects” in the crime. They study and discuss reference materials, including records, newspaper articles, charts, graphs, and even “secret documents,” and integrate all of this information with their own test results.

By placing science learning in a real-world context, Environmental Detectives conveys solid scientific content and research-based inquiry skills. Students become aware of the interconnectedness of the natural world and the complexity of many environmental problems. They discover that science and society are inextricably linked, and that most solutions require compromise.

Time: Five 45- to 60-minute sessions for each mystery.

Ex-library book. Used. Good condition.