How to Use This Curriculum

Alaska forest and tundra fires burn thousands of acres each year, affecting Alaskans throughout the state. Whether these fires are a result of natural events, prescribed burns, or human accident, they effect Alaska's ecosystems, wildlife, and economy. This curriculum was designed to help Alaskan students learn about the role of fire in boreal forest and tundra ecosystems.

Role of Fire is divided into 3 units: 1) Forest and Tundra Ecology, 2) Fire Effects on the Ecosystem, and 3) Fire Management. Each unit begins with introductory teacher background pages that provide general information for that section. Additionally, activities may include a background section specific to the concept taught within.

This is a supplemental guide making it possible to add it to any part of your existing curriculum. Each lesson includes a planning box that correlates the activity to the Alaska State Content Standards, and includes grade levels, subjects, skills, duration, group size, setting, and vocabulary.

A glossary, reference literature, related links, and an index of Alaska State Content Standards are provided. They can be accessed from the left side of your web screen or at the end of the printed document.

Quickest Viewing: In order to make this curriculum accessible on the web, it has been necessary to segment each unit so that it will download in reasonable time. Viewing the lessons directly on your screen is the fastest way to see the curriculum contents; however, some handouts and maps will only be seen if you select the blue link to view them.

Printing: There are 3 ways to print lessons in this curriculum.
1. Print directly from the website by selecting the "Printable Version" icon at the end of each lesson (this will remove the left bar from the page.) This is the quickest way to print, but you may not have page breaks occur at convenient places. Remember that you will have to print the handouts that are links within the website separately!

2. Print the lesson, and corresponding handouts, from the PDF files. These files are shown following the lesson title on the Table of Contents page for each unit. The links to the handouts appear in blue.

3. Print the "Complete Lesson" these PDF files include the lesson and all of the relevant handouts. They are often very large files so they may be hard to download!