Lesson Overview: This activity introduces a suite of organisms that live in Northern California oak woodlands. Each student “adopts” an organism, learns about its characteristics and its relationship to fire, and gives a presentation on it to the class - illustrated by some form of artwork.

Lesson Goal: Increase students’ understanding of ecological communities, ecosystems, and biodiversity by learning about some of the plants, animals, and fungi that live in the forests of Northern California oak woodlands.

Objectives: Given reference materials from the FireWorks Encyclopedia: Oak Woodlands:

• Students can prepare a mask, costume, puppet, or other art work and use it in a 3- to 4-minute presentation that describes the biology of their organism and its relationship to fire.
• Students can understand that individual species have specific ways to survive the fires that were historically typical in the ecosystems where they live.