Lesson #2 What are ecosystem goods and services?

Description for slide 1

Display or project Slide 1 or provide a provocative image to prompt learner reflection on the question “What goods and services does this ecosystem provide?”

Guide learners in a discussion of what an ecosystem might be and why it might be important to understand and study ecosystems. Encourage learners to consider how people benefit from ecosystems.

Description for slide 2

Organize learners into small groups and provide each group with a copy of Activity sheet #4: Economic goods and services. Display or project Slide 2 and inform learners that image is of advertising from two businesses. Inform learners that their challenge is to identify the goods and services offered by each business.

Remind learners of the strategies for making thoughtful observations and encourage learners to record what they observe in each ad. Guide learners in using these observations to infer possible goods and services provided by each business.

Invite learners to review the goods and services that they have recorded. Instruct them to develop possible definitions for goods and services. Record or project suggested definitions.

Description for slide 3

Display or project Slide 3 and inform learners that three of the images are examples of economic goods and one image is a non-example. Prompt learners to reflect on the definition they recorded on Activity sheet #4: Economic goods and services.

Encourage learners to consider what services might be associated with the examples of goods. For example, ‘skateboard repair’ might be a service related to a skateboard.

Description for slide 4

Display or project Slide 4 and challenge learners to determine which of the images are examples of services and which might be non-examples of services. Prompt learners to reflect on the definition they recorded on Activity sheet #4: Economic goods and services. Encourage learners to think about the benefit that each service might provide.

Description for slide 5

Display or project Slide 5 and encourage learners to revise their definitions of goods and services, if required.

Description for slide 6

Display or project Slide 6 and inform learners that their next task is to use these definitions to determine what goods and services might be provided by an ecosystem. Invite learners to consider which four EGS pictured are goods and which are services. The images represent (clockwise from top left):

• timber and wood products
• clean air or air purification
• hiking and recreation
• water regulation or flood control.

Learners might suggest that wood products are a good, clean air is a good, air purification is a service, recreation is a service, and water regulation is a service. Prompt learners to consider that some EGS may be less obvious but are still important. Ask them to propose other possible goods and services that may be provided by ecosystems.

Description for slide 7

Display or project Slide 7 and provide learners with Briefing sheet #1: Categorizing ecosystem goods and services. Review the different categories of EGS, then display or project Slide 8. Inform learners that their challenge is to categorize each of the EGS reflected in the images.

Description for slide 8

Learners might suggest that wood is a provisioning service, clean air is a provisioning service, air purification is a regulatory service, recreation is a cultural service, and water regulation and flood control are regulatory services.

For more information on the categories of EGS, see the Statistics Canada publication, Human Activity and the Environment 2013: Measuring ecosystem goods and services in Canada, page 20.

Description for slide 9

Display or project Slide 9 and inform learners that their next task is to use the definitions of goods and services to determine what goods and services might be present in the pictured ecosystem.

Provide each learner with a copy of Activity sheet #5: Exploring ecosystem goods and services. Guide learners in observing features of the ecosystem and identifying related EGS. Remind learners that less obvious EGS may still be very important. For example, clean air might be a good provided by an ecosystem, and cattails might provide a service by cleaning air and water. Finally, instruct learners to indicate which of the three categories each EGS might belong to. Prompt learners to record their observations and related EGS on the Activity sheet.

Organize learners into small groups and invite them to review the EGS that they have recorded. Instruct learners to develop possible definitions for EGS. Record or project suggested definitions.

Description for slide 10

Display or project Slide 10. Ask learners to suggest what has occurred in the pictured ecosystem. Prompt learners to consider how human activity has affected the goods and services provided by this ecosystem. Invite learners to discuss possibilities with a partner and then share ideas with the class.

Possible responses include the production of timber and other forest products, as well as loss of habitat, loss of clean air and increased erosion.

Conclude by prompting learners to respond to the question: “Why might it be important to understand and study ecosystem goods and services?” Possible responses include the importance of knowing about the quantity, quality and value of goods and services provided by Canada’s ecosystems in order to guide decisions about development or land use.

For more information on EGS refer to the Statistics Canada publication, Human Activity and the Environment 2013: Measuring ecosystem goods and services in Canada, pages 8 to 10, and 15.