WHYY CPB
Why We Should Protect Freshwater Mussels

Organize Your Thoughts

Now that you have gained an understanding of freshwater mussels and their impact on freshwater ecosystems, use Organize It to prepare for your final assignment.

Using what you’ve learned in the lesson, create an outline for an opinion article you’ll write for your local or school paper on the importance of protecting freshwater mussel populations. Use the three essential questions introduced at the beginning of the lesson and repeated below to frame your argument.

  • What role do freshwater mussels play in the environment, and why would it matter if they disappeared?
  • What factors threaten mussel populations today?
  • How are scientists working to preserve and protect mussel populations?

When possible, use evidence from videos and text to support your ideas. Please be sure to review all of the notes that you have taken using the My Work tab above and take notes on major ideas and key vocabulary for each question. You may also watch the videos again below. 

Organize It!: Your work has been submitted.

Organize Your Thoughts

Why Care About Mussels

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Threats to Mussels

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f Enter or exit fullscreen. (Note: To exit fullscreen in flash press the Esc key.
c Press c to toggle captions on or off

Mussel Restoration

Keyboard Shortcut Action
Space Pause/Play video playback
Enter Pause/Play video playback
m Mute/Unmute video volume
Up and Down arrows Increase and decrease volume by 10%
Right and Left arrows Seek forward or backward by 5 seconds
0-9 Fast seek to x% of the video.
f Enter or exit fullscreen. (Note: To exit fullscreen in flash press the Esc key.
c Press c to toggle captions on or off

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Directions: Using what you’ve learned in the lesson, create an outline for an opinion article you’ll write for your local or school paper on the importance of protecting mussel populations. Use the three essential questions introduced at the beginning of the lesson to frame your argument.

  1. What role do freshwater mussels play in the environment, and why would it matter if they disappeared?
  2. What factors threaten mussel populations today?
  3. How are scientists working to preserve and protect mussel populations?

When possible, use evidence from videos and text to support your ideas. 

Are you sure you want to unsubmit your work? Clicking YES will remove it from your My Work page.