Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to show, using graphs and statistics, how much forested area is burned over a ten year period in Canada and in their province or territory.

Summary

In this activity students will begin to understand the impact fire has on the forested land. They will take the knowledge they have gained in the activity and have a better understanding of how forest fires vary from year to year and do not affect all areas of the country the same.

Activity Information

• Grade level: Senior
• Subject: Math, Biology
• Skills: Graphing, critical analysis, statistical analysis
• Duration: 1.5 to 2 hours
• Group Size: any size
• Setting: Indoors
• Materials: Fire occurence charts, graph paper

Background

The amount of forest that burns changes every year. In fact, how much burns in one year affects how much will burn in the future. If we track the occurence of fire over a long enough time we can see a pattern emerging. Usually if there are several years with very small area burned, we may later experience one or more years of larger forest fires.Forest fires are a natural occurrence that are affected by a number of environmental factors. As forests are such long-lived organisms we need to track fire occurrences over as long a time as possible in order to understand what is going on.

Activity

1. Using the information provided, determine the amount of area burned by fire each year for a ten year period in both Canada and your province or territory.
2. Graph your results.
3. Compare the results. Does the amount of area burned in your province or territory correspond with the national average? lf not what could have caused the different results?
4. Do you see any patterns emerging? If so what are they? Ten years is a very short time in the life of the forest; what might be a better time scale to use when determining forest fire occurrence patterns?

Evaluation

Have students do a short report interpreting wildland fire figures

Extension

1. Since the boreal forest is also called the "fireforest" what might we expect of provinces with a large amount of boreal forest type in it?
2. Graph the results of other provinces and compare them to yours.