Description

Lesson Overview: Students use the stand history diagrams that they assembled in the 2 previous activities to learn about mixed-severity fire regimes. They interpret stand history diagrams for plots from each of the 3 forest types they’ve been studying. Then they read articles about fire regimes in these forest types and summarize an article in a news blog.

Lesson Goals: Understand the nature of low-severity, stand-replacing, and mixed-severity fire regimes. Recognize the most prevalent fire regime in 3 forest community types that occur from the northern Rockies to the North Cascades - ponderosa, lodgepole, and whitebark pine communities. Determine whether a fire regime has changed over the past century and explain why changes in fire regimes matter.

Objectives:

• Students can identify low-severity, mixed-severity, and stand-replacing fire regimes from stand history diagrams.
• Students can understand a 1-page technical article on a fire regime.
• Students can write a concise blog that summarizes information on a fire regime, how it has changed over the past century, and why that matters.
• Students can identify strengths and weaknesses in blogs written by other students.