CER Practice: Climate Change Deforestation Bundle (Biology)

Description

Deforestation is usually presented as a problem to feel bad about. This bundle treats it as a problem to work on. Students move beyond learning about deforestation into the role of environmental scientists, investigating real-world solutions that are being deployed right now — and judging each one on its evidence, not its intentions.

The two confirmed activities in the bundle approach reforestation from opposite directions: one high-tech, one land-use — which makes the comparison between them the most valuable discussion in the set.

What’s inside

• Drone Tree Planting — students evaluate an emerging reforestation strategy that uses drones to plant trees at scale.
• Agroforestry — students evaluate a land-use strategy that integrates trees with agriculture, restoring tree cover on working land.

How it runs in class

Each activity runs the full solution-evaluation sequence: frame the problem, examine the evidence, evaluate feasibility, determine a recommendation. Taught together, the pair lets students compare a technology-driven strategy against a practice-driven one — speed and scale on one side, working landscapes and livelihoods on the other — and defend which approach fits which forest. The bundle anchors a deforestation or carbon cycle stretch of a climate unit and ends well in a structured class discussion.

Built on the S.E.E.D. Framework

Both activities run the complete S.E.E.D. Framework — State the Problem, Examine the Evidence, Evaluate Feasibility, Determine a Recommendation — and the CER writing in each is the recommendation itself, defended from evidence.

Standards alignment

NGSS: HS-LS2-6, HS-LS2-7, HS-ESS3-4. Grades 8–12 · Biology, Earth Sciences, Environment.

Finish the bundle with a synthesis discussion: if a foundation gave your class a fixed restoration budget, how would students split it between the drone program and the agroforestry program — and what evidence from each activity drives the split? Forcing a number onto the recommendation is what turns two good CER responses into genuine comparative judgment.

Start with one: the Drone Tree Planting activity or the Agroforestry activity. There’s also a free companion — the free Deforestation & Forest Restoration activity — and more no-cost resources in the Free Library.