Objective
Our primary objective is to help people understand ecological, social, and economic issues related to ecosystem services, tradeoffs, and land management. We believe PEWI is a powerful tool to achieve this, and hope to expand the use of PEWI with student learners in the classroom and with adult learners in stakeholder groups. Have you created a lesson plan that you would like to share? We invite you to add your lesson plan to this library by contacting Lisa Schulte Moore.
Need additional lesson plans or guidance on teaching with PEWI?
Whether you just want more lesson plans or you intend to teach using the PEWI tool, the Teacher's Guide is a great resource. It will provide guidance on using the tool in team-based learning, 4-H, and science fairs.
If you just need the basic lesson plans, keep exploring the lesson plans on this page!
Lesson Plans
These "Basic PEWI Exercises" contain outlines for five short activities intended to introduce undergraduate students to the following concepts: Ecological Functions, Ecological Functions and Conservation Practices, Targeting for Conservation, Inter-annual Variability, and Land-use Tradeoffs. They could also be adapted for use in high school classrooms.
The Ecosystem Services Lab outlines three exercises that utilize PEWI within an undergraduate classroom to teach students about Ecological Functions and Targeting and Tradeoffs. The third lesson allows students to design their ideal watershed. Lesson outlines also contain suggestions for how to modify exercises for graduate students.
Accounting for Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs in Land Use Planning with PEWI
This lesson plan asks students to imagine themselves as a city planning commission tasked with developing a land-use plan with specific ecosystem services in mind. The lesson includes two short exercises that utilize PEWI and recommended discussion questions that help students understand ecosystem services tradeoffs. This lesson has been successfully used with undergraduate and graduate students, and could be adapted for use with adult learners.
Landscape Design Group Project
This document outlines a group project wherein undergraduate or graduate students use PEWI to create and compare four landscape designs. Students are asked to submit a detailed project report discussing multifunctional benefits within their designs and how their land-use scenarios may be viewed by diverse stakeholder groups.
The Future of Food, Energy, and Water
This is a 2-part lesson plan designed as a group project. In the first lesson, students will learn how to use PEWI and establish goals for how to manage food, energy, and water resources within their watersheds. A follow-up lesson teaches students to design a landscape according to the objectives set forth in the first part. This lesson has been successfully used with middle school and high school students.
This set of combined lecture and lab materials is designed to help undergraduate and graduate students conduct a net social value analysis associated with different land uses. By the end of the lesson students will be more familiar with how to determine the financial viability of a watershed scale land-use plan. The materials could be modified for use with adult learners.
Effects of land use and meeting multiple human demands on agricultural landscapes
This is a 2-part lesson plan designed to be used in a 50-minute period in a middle school or high school classroom. The first exercise in this lesson plan asks students to explore the effects of three basic land-use scenarios in the PEWI watershed. After recording results, students discuss patterns, similarities, and differences among the scenarios. The second exercise in the lesson plan builds on the first exercise. Students design their own land use in the watershed to meet multiple human demands of agricultural landscapes.
Exercises for Engaging Agricultural Stakeholders on Watershed Issues
This set of three exercises was designed for engaging adult learners. The facilitator may choose to use Parts I and IIa all by itself to introduce PEWI, or add on Parts IIb, III, and/or the Homework exercises to teach more advanced watershed and nutrient reduction concepts.