Studies of Endangered Species Stress Transboundary Conservation

Positives

• The article presents a short summary of the research related to transboundary conservation of endangered species, while also linking to the full scientific journal with eight available articles on the topic.
• It highlights the importance of cooperation between nations.
  
• Charismatic animal and plant species are highlighted in many of the scientific journal articles.

Additional Prerequisites

• Learners that read the journal articles should be familiar with the structure of a scientific journal article and how scientific research is presented in a peer-reviewed fashion.
• Learners should understand some of the basic threats that climate change poses to habitats and other species.

Differentiation

• Consider having students choose one of the highlighted endangered species to research on their own before tackling any of the scientific journal articles related to the conservation issues they face.
• When reading any scientific journal article at the high school level, major reading scaffolds are often necessary to help make the high level text more accessible.
• Scaffolds that may be helpful when reading journal articles include chunking, think alouds, previewing vocabulary, and group analysis of graphs.
• Have students research a local species that is endangered and discuss how its range may fragment or shift due to climate change.
• If teachers choose to utilize the journal articles in addition to the short summary, there are excellent opportunities to build scientific literacy through maps, graphs, diagrams, and domain-specific language.