Weed Habitats I

Title: Weed Habitats I

AIM: To explore the local diversity of weed habitats.

You will need:

Alocal bushland area, school garden or your school grounds,
Pencils, copies of this worksheet,
Weed identification materials,
Compass, and
Hand trowel

Students are to work in small groups to describe one weed habitat in terms of the features listed in the worksheet. Students will need to do a little digging to gauge soil type and moisture. Stress the need for minimal disturbance when doing this and they need to backfill all holes when finished.

Habitat grid

Circle the description that best fits each feature of the weed habitat.

Habitat description for…	(insert name of weed)
Moisture	Dry	Moist	Wet
Light	No shade	Part shade	Fully shaded
Aspect East	North	South	East	West
Soil type	Sandy soil	Clay soil	Soil feels like silt	Soil fine and fluffy
Disturbance– fire	No recent fire	Black on tree trunks	Recent fire
Disturbance – soil	Soil looks untouched	Soil sometimes movement dug or trampled	Soil often dug or trampled
Competition	Only a few plants	A lot of plants	Plants take up all the space

Compare your findings with other groups. How do the habitats of weeds differ? How are they similar?

Are there any conditions that all the weeds collected by the class seem to like/not like? What do your observations tell you about the requirements of your weed? How might the habitat be changed to discourage these weeds? Can any of the weeds be used in some way?

referenced by (1)

WeedBuddiesContent7: WeedBuddies Activities Contents

Article: WeedBuddiesContent30 (permalink)
Date: 31 January 2013; 9:20:28 PM AEDT

Author Name: Zheljana Peric
Author ID: zper12