This is a task from the Illustrative Mathematics website that is one part of a complete illustration of the standard to which it is aligned. Each task has at least one solution and some commentary that addresses important asects of the task and its potential use. Here are the first few lines of the commentary for this task: Maned wolves are a threatened species that live in South America. People estimate that there are about 24,000 of them living in the wild. The dhole is ...

It's no secret that greenhouse gases warm the planet and that this has dire consequences for the environment whole islands swallowed up by rising seas, animal and plant species stressed by higher temperatures, and upsets in ecological interactions as populations move to cooler areas. However, carbon dioxide has another, less familiar environmental repercussion: making the Earth's oceans more acidic. Higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere mean that more carbon dioxide dissolves in the ocean. This dissolved carbon dioxide forms carbonic acid the same substance that helps give carbonated beverages their acidic kick. While this process isn't going to make the ocean fizzy anytime soon, it is introducing its own set of challenges for marine organisms like plankton and coral.

Our human society consists of many intertwined Large Scale Socio-Technical Systems (LSSTS), such as infrastructures, industrial networks, the financial systems etc. Environmental pressures created by these systems on Earth‰ŰŞs carrying capacity are leading to exhaustion of natural resources, loss of habitats and biodiversity, and are causing a resource and climate crisis. To avoid this sustainability crisis, we urgently need to transform our production and consumption patterns. Given that we, as inhabitants of this planet, are part of a complex and integrated global system, where and how should we begin this transformation? And how can we also ensure that our transformation efforts will lead to a sustainable world? LSSTS and the ecosystems that they are embedded in are known to be Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS). According to John Holland CAS are "...a dynamic network of many agents (which may represent cells, species, individuals, firms, nations) acting in parallel, constantly acting and reacting to what the other agents are doing. The control of a CAS tends to be highly dispersed and decentralized. If there is to be any coherent behavior in the system, it will have to to arise from competition and cooperation among the agents themselves. The overall behavior of the system is the result of a huge number of decisions made every moment" by many individual agents. Understanding Complex Adaptive Systems requires tools that themselves are complex to create and understand. Shalizi defines Agent Based Modeling as "An agent is a persistent thing which has some state we find worth representing, and which interacts with other agents, mutually modifying each other‰ŰŞs states. The components of an agent-based model are a collection of agents and their states, the rules governing the interactions of the agents and the environment within which they live." This course will explore the theory of CAS and their main properties. It will also teach you how to work with Agent Based Models in order to model and understand CAS.

This collection focuses on a rapidly evolving field in which the study of both species-specific and ubiquitous aging mechanisms informs the biological process of aging. Yet the field is not without substantial controversy, differing views arise as we come to understand aging across model systems - from bacteria to humans.

In this Interactive Lecture Demonstration, students will predict the main issues that might be included in short French language videos treating topics such as endangered species, organic farming, the effect of aerosols on the environment, pollution and sustainable development. They will then view short videos on the topics and reflect on how their prior assumptions meshed with reality.

"Babies and young children are like the R&D division of the human species," says psychologist Alison Gopnik. Her research explores the sophisticated intelligence-gathering and decision-making that babies are really doing when they play.

Commercial fishing nets often trap "unprofitable" animals in the process of catching target species. In this activity, students experience the difficulty that fishermen experience while trying to isolate a target species when a variety of sea animals are found in the area of interest. Then the class discusses the large magnitude of this problem. Students practice data acquisition and analysis skills by collecting data and processing it to deduce trends on target species distribution. They conclude by discussing how bycatch impacts their lives and whether or not it is an important environmental issue that needs attention. As an extension, students use their creativity and innovative skills to design nets or other methods, theoretically and/or through hands-on prototyping, that fisherman could use to help avoid bycatch.

Bycatch, the unintended capture of animals in commercial fishing gear, is a hot topic in marine conservation today. The surprisingly high level of bycatch about 25% of the entire global catch is responsible for the decline of hundreds of thousands of dolphins, whales, porpoises, seabirds and sea turtles each year. Through this curricular unit, students analyze the significance of bycatch in the global ecosystem and propose solutions to help reduce bycatch. They become familiar with current attempts to reduce the fishing mortality of these animals. Through the associated activities, the challenges faced today are reinforced and students are stimulated to brainstorm about possible engineering designs or policy changes that could reduce the magnitude of bycatch.

These images from the Smithsonian Institution depict Nancy Knowlton's work with snapping shrimp in Panama. Knowlton found that the closing of the isthmus -- dividing the Pacific Ocean from the Caribbean -- resulted in new species of shrimp.

Because small mammals are prey species, they do not take to intensive conditions of surgery and hospitalisation very readily. Those that are handled very frequently by their owners are more bonded with humans and better surgical subjects as a result. Rodents and rabbits are particularly susceptible to the surgical complications of dehydration (blood and fluid loss), core temperature depression, hypovolaemic shock, ileus and renal and respiratory depression.

Analytical chemistry spans nearly all areas of chemistry but involves the development of tools and methods to measure physical properties of substances and apply those techniques to the identification of their presence (qualitative analysis) and quantify the amount present (quantitative analysis) of species in a wide variety of settings.

In this seminar you will begin to explore the adaptations of the polar bear and learn how they stay alive in such a harsh environment. You will be thinking interdependently and using the complex reasoning skill of comparing. You will compare the adaptations of one arctic creature to another. Additionally, you will find a way to persuade people to save endangered arctic animals.StandardsStandard - 3.1.4.A5Describe common functions living things share to help them function in a specific environment.

This site is a searchable encyclopedia of thousands of photos, descriptions, sound recordings, and other information about individual animal species. Find out about amphibians, arthropods, birds, fishes, insects, mammals, mollusks, reptiles, and sharks. Explore special features on mammals, skulls, and frog calls. Students are invited to contribute.

Learn about the structure and function of living organisms by drawing an imaginary animal in the Take the Stage game show, ANIMAL SURVIVAL! Viewers become contestants on a game show and are challenged to draw an imaginary animal that could live and survive in either the desert, ocean, or the arctic tundra. When drawing the imaginary animal, the contestants write out two distinct structures and a function for each of the structures that help it survive. Learning Objective: Compare the structures and functions of different species that help them live and survive in a specific environment.

The Ensembl VEP is a powerful tool that allows you to input a list of genetic variants and determines which genes are affected and how. In this webinar, you’ll learn how to use the online VEP tool, which is suitable for analysing short lists of genetic variants, and the offline tool, which allows you to annotate whole genome variant calls.

Who is this course for?
This webinar is suitable to any clinical or research scientists who are interested in exploring genetic variants and their effect. In this webinar we will use examples from human clinical data but the VEP tool is available for other species too.

Outcomes
By the end of the webinar you will be able to:

Describe the application of VEP
Analyse short lists of genetic variants using VEP
Annotate variation data

Finding and eradicating invasive plants is a tough job that requires constant vigilance. County-scale maps that show where invasive plants are and where they have the potential to spread in the future are helping on-the-ground efforts to build the resilience of natural vegetation.

Students create four-legged walking robots and measure how far they travel across different types of surfaces. They design and create "shoes" to add to the robots' feet and observe the effect of their modifications on the net distance traveled across the various surface types. This activity illustrates how the specialized locomotive features of different species help them to survive or thrive in their habitat environments. The activity is best as an enrichment tool that follows a lesson that introduces the concept of biological adaptation to students.

The purpose of this resource is to observe when selected bird species first arrive at your study site, and to count the numbers until few or none of these birds are seen. Students select a common and easily identifiable bird species in their region and observe when the bird species first arrives. Students use binoculars or telescopes to scan a study site and count how many they see. They continue to observe every other day until few or none of the selected species can be seen.

This fun Web site is part of OLogy, where kids can collect virtual trading cards and create projects with them. Here, they take a look at genetics and DNA research with six AMNH scientists' journals. The Humpback Whale Journal takes kids to Madagascar to meet this endangered species. The Spotted Owl Journal takes kids to California for a look at these birds who are at risk because their forest homes are being cut down. The Sumatran Tiger Journal takes kids to Indonesia for a look at this genetically unique tiger. The Ruffed Lemur Journal also takes kids to Madagascar, but this time they venture inland to meet the endangered primate. The Pacu Journal takes kids to Brazil to meet this vegetarian relative of the meat-eating piranha. The St. Vincent Parrot Journal takes kids to the West Indies to meet the rare, colorful birds that are further at risk because of smuggling.