Island Paradise

Island Paradise

Developed by Eleanour Snow, Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin

How to cite this work: Snow, E. 2011. Island Paradise, TXESS Revolution, http://txessrevolution.org/IslandIntro, Date Accessed.

Overview

The case study presents the story of Easter Island, and its ecological collapse. It is written as a jigsaw, in which students receive part of the story, and make predictions about what will later happen. They work out their ideas with a group who has read the same part of the story, and then switch to mixed groups who have now the whole story.

The story works well as a starting point to a unit on population and sustainability. The story evokes many questions from the students that naturally lead into a discussion of Earth and it carrying capacity.

Research and Testing of This Activity

This activity was implemented in the following teacher professional development workshops: (1) TXESS Revolution PDA 8 (2011). The TXESS Revolution project is funded by the National Science Foundation Opportunities for Enhancing Diversity in the Geosciences program. Feedback from teachers was used to refine the activity.