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Deer Fences and Willow Seedlings at Cottonwood Bend

Grade 6 life science: deer surveys, fenced willow plots and a nursery test show how browsing and inherited genes both affect plant growth.

Grade 6ScienceInteractive · Printable

Aligned toMS-LS1-5

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What’s included

Single worksheet
Auto-graded online
1 NGSS standard
Printable answer key
11 questions
Classroom-ready

Details

Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 6
Subject: Science
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Sorting, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students analyze survey data to explain how an environmental factor, deer browsing, affects willow growth.
Students use a same-bed nursery test to identify a genetic effect on growth.
Students argue from evidence that both genes and environment affect how tall a plant grows.

How to use

Read the passage together and talk about why the fenced plots matter before students start. Section 3 works well as a pair discussion before writing.

Curriculum

NGSS standard covered

MS-LS1-5

Explain how environmental and genetic factors affect the growth of organisms.

Preview

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Name Date

Deer Fences and Willow Seedlings at Cottonwood Bend

Use refuge survey and nursery data to explain what affects how willows grow.

Deer and the fenced plots

Read the passage and study Table 1. Then answer questions 1–5.

Fences in the Floodplain

1Cottonwood Bend National Wildlife Refuge protects a river floodplain where thickets of sandbar willow grow along the banks. The refuge and its numbers are made up, but they are based on real wildlife studies. Willow thickets give nesting birds, beavers and many insects food and shelter. This year, sixth grader Lucía Bergström volunteered with refuge biologist Dr. Celeste Arvidsson.

2Each fall, volunteers drive the same route on three nights and count white-tailed deer with spotlights. From these counts, Dr. Arvidsson estimates how many deer live in each square kilometer of the refuge’s North, Middle and South zones. Deer often browse, or bite off, the soft tips of young willow shoots.

3Ten years ago, the refuge built a tall fence around one small plot in each zone. Deer cannot get into these fenced plots. Right next to each fenced plot is an open plot of the same size. All six plots have the same sandy soil, sit at about the same height above the river and get full sun. In April, Lucía helped tag 20 young shoots in every plot. In October, the team measured how much each tagged shoot had grown and counted the shoots outside the fences whose tips had been bitten off.

4The refuge also runs a nursery that grows willows for replanting eroded riverbanks. Last year, the staff collected sandbar willow seeds in two places: along the river on the refuge and in a cold mountain canyon about 1,800 m higher, where summers are short. They planted 30 seeds from each place in one nursery bed with the same soil, the same daily watering and the same sunlight. No deer can reach the nursery. After one year, they measured every seedling.