Learner Guide

Climate Range Shifter learner guide

Use this guide to approach the app as a climate-and-ecology investigation with a clear question, expected observations, and follow-up reasoning.

Open application Teacher guide Standards

Teaching Focus

Learner tasks

Run a baseline case and compare climate-center movement to range-center movement.
Change adaptation rate and explain how mismatch changes over time.
Reduce habitat breadth and describe how quickly occupancy declines under the same climate velocity.

Keep this distinction clear

Environmental change is not the same thing as biological response.
Tracking can lag even when the environment changes smoothly.
A range may persist temporarily while mismatch still grows.

Suggested Sequence

Before the run

Define the species or population being modeled, the moving climate condition, and what result would count as successful tracking versus growing mismatch.

During the run

Run a baseline case, then change adaptation rate, habitat breadth, or climate velocity one at a time and compare the resulting movement.

After the run

Explain whether the model shows tracking, lag, or failure to keep pace, and what further run would test your interpretation.

Core Question

What happens when climate conditions move faster than populations or species can track them?

Evidence Prompts

What to record

Which climate or biological parameter changed.
How climate center, range center, or occupancy changed over time.
Where mismatch widened, narrowed, or led to decline.

Questions to answer

What evidence shows that the population is tracking or failing to track climate change?
Which biological limit seems most important in the result you observed?
What one further run would help test your explanation?

Self-Study Path

Try this on your own

Run a baseline case, then change adaptation rate or habitat breadth and compare how the range responds. Write a short explanation of where mismatch grows and why.

Extend the investigation

Pair this app with EcoSpecies to connect modeled range shift with actual species accounts, habitat context, and cited evidence.

Scientific Virtues

Habits to practice

Distinguish between what the model output shows and what you infer about real ecosystems.
Look for competing explanations before settling on the first plausible pattern.
Revise claims when changing one condition at a time produces results that challenge the original story.

Continue the thread

Use the Scientific Virtues page to connect ecological modeling with evidence, skepticism, and revision.