Implementation for Michael Lowry

I modified this unit for use with ArcGIS. My students have become adept at making the changes. We aslo found wetlands data for TN and use it as a follow up activity.
I've attached the form and some screen shots of the lesson.

How you would approach wetlands development next time --I am curious about the response you gave:
• How will you carry out this project/activity differently in the future? I would connect it to the concept of the “tragedy of the commons” and take an economics approach.

I am in New England - are you talking about the town commons and the grazing and other rights the whole community had to these pieces of land? You are in TN - are there other "commons" there?

Yes, that is a form of the "commons." We do a unit in overfishing and how fishers have an incentive to haul in as many fish as possible during a brief season (in this example the ocean is the commons). Economists say that we must change the incentive. There is no ownership of the commons, hence people abuse it. Create ownership (property rights) and people behave differently.

An organization such as Ducks Unlimited buys wetlands and preserves the land. They own the land and have an incentive to keep it robust for their purposes.

I hope to connect this wetlands unit to that idea.