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The 7-12 activities concentrate on inter-relationships and ecosystem connections. This is one of the major themes for the significance of protecting Glacier National Park. The story of again is a good introduction that illustrates how all of the private and public land in Northwest Montana is connected. The area that is now Glacier National Park is a central piece of the .
Unit One: An International Peace Park – This unit focuses on the relationships between Canadians and Americans, Waterton Lakes and Glacier National Parks, and the concept of “peace.” for teacher background information and the introduction to 7-12, Unit One.
- Activity 1: – e-mail discussion between Canadian and American students about their similarities and differences.
- Activity 2: – facilitated group activity about the historical and present functioning of the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.
- Activity 3: – creative group writing about the various meanings of “peace” through a park hike and/or a guided image experience.
Unit Two: A Serious Economics Nut - This unit focuses on the interrelationships surrounding whitebark pines in the subalpine. for teacher background information and the introduction to 7-12, Unit Two.
- Activity 1: – an outside “hide and retrieve” game illustrating the memory capabilities of the Clark’s nutcracker.
- Activity 2: – dendrochronology and climate change in whitebark pines, and art projects doing tree rings of student personal histories.
- Activity 3: – outdoor game illustrating the calories du jour sequence for grizzlies; whitebark pine decline effects and bear relationships with squirrels.
- Activity 4: – an archival look at the times and types of bear – human conflicts (related back to whitebark pine); a visit by a bear management specialist (students construct overlay of bear-human conflict locations).
- Activity 5: – the classic information cards for members and yarn for connections “web game”, removing keystone whitebark pine from the web to show effects.
Unit Three: Parks in the Parks: The Aspenlands – This unit focuses on the interrelationships in the aspen parklands. for teacher background information and the introduction to 7-12, Unit Three.
- Activity 1: – a geographic study of aspen park locations; chinooks, special qualities of aspen trees (overlays of aspen areas and low creek bottoms).
- Activity 2: – role-playing the beaver’s family; compare to human family (overlay of beaver pond locations – compare to aspen).
- Activity 3: – graphing the population cycles of hares, lynx, grouse and male aspen bud production.
- Activity 4: – side-by-side comparison of bear “hibernation” and marmot/ground squirrel “true hibernation”; same with highland and lowland east side grizzlies.
Unit Four: Land of the Giants – Unit four focuses on the interrelationships in the old growth west side forests. for teacher background information and the introduction to 7-12, Unit Four.
- Activity 1: – Map exercise tracing the paths of warmth and moisture to the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park old growth.
- Activity 2: – succession and climax in the old growth, sunlight economics (age class overlay from park GIS).
- Activity 3: – a first-hand examination of soil and recycling of death, and a literary approach.
- Activity 4: – a scavenging game illustrating interspecies cooperative feeding and highly specific niches in the old growth.
Unit Five: A Park Not Alone – Unit Five is about: the study of three-watersheds, biodiversity, and the connections of the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park to issues outside of the park. for teacher background information and the introduction to 7-12, Unit Five.
- Activity 1: – introduced plants, identification, range expansion, with a public service activity / eradication project.
- Activity 2: – geographic comparison of floods and human habitation, flood adaptations of other species (overlays of 20, 50, 100, 500-year floodplains and human settlement maps to compare).
- Activity 3: – human and animal travel corridors; geography map overlay comparisons of human presence then and now, Yellowstone to Yukon, the fragmentation issue outside park boundaries, (overlay of roaded and unroaded areas, probable corridors for wild animals, human travel corridors for contrast).
- Activity 4: – discussion activity on diversity of life.
- Activity 5: – game on dispersal and island biogeography.
- Activity 6: – class discussion on historical and future population ranges of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park animals.
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