🦉 Phase 3 - Investigation
🧪 Lab · Path A
⏱ 11 minutes
Task 4 - Path A: The Ecologist
How can artificial light at night affect insects, birds, bats, plants or other organisms?
Choose your path (you can only fully complete one)
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A: The Ecologist
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B: The Human Scientist
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C: The Lighting Designer
Investigate how artificial light at night can affect insects, birds, bats, plants or other organisms. Choose two examples. Remember: do not accept a statistic just because it sounds precise.
Step 1 - Tap the night creatures
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Wonder Learning AI
"Explain two scientifically supported ways artificial light at night can affect wildlife."
"Artificial light at night can disrupt wildlife in two well-supported ways: it confuses nocturnal insects like moths, which navigate using the moon and get trapped circling artificial lights instead of travelling normally, and it can delay migratory birds' internal clocks, causing them to leave stopover sites at the wrong time. Scientists have found that exactly 72% of night-flying moth populations have declined due to streetlights, and this number is considered completely settled science."
Tap the highlighted sentence, then fact-check it:
Good fact-check - this is incomplete. The general effects on moths and birds are well-supported by research, but a single precise global percentage presented as "completely settled science" is exactly the kind of overly confident statistic to be cautious about - real research usually reports ranges, varies by species and location, and keeps investigating.
Step 2 - Build your Nightlife Map
Two creatures you investigated
Tap at least two creatures above first
Who needs darkness, and why? (one sentence)
Sleep, water, food and movement aren't the only things affected by light - now let's meet the other investigators.
What happens in Task 4
An 11-minute Phase 3 - Investigation activity (Path A of 3 - choose one). Students explore a night-creatures map, ask the Wonder Learning AI about effects on wildlife, fact-check one claim, answer two check questions, then build a Nightlife Map output.
🎯 Learning objectives
To describe at least two ways artificial night lighting can affect living organisms, and to question a statistic rather than accepting it because it sounds precise.
♿ SEN Adaptations
- One animal only in support mode; reduced-text source cards; voice-to-text
🖨️ No-Tech Format
- Lab Booklet pages 3-5: one investigation card with two short source extracts; highlight PROBLEM | EVIDENCE | CONNECTION | POSSIBLE SOLUTION