SNHi Secondary School Activities - Scottish Natural Heritage Information Service

Species & Habitats

Vendace

Activity 14 - Report on freshwater fish in Scotland

Background for teachers

The vendace is one of the UK’s rarest freshwater fish. It has only ever been known from four locations in the UK, two in Scotland and two in England. It became extinct in Scotland by 1970 and was reintroduced to two Scottish sites in the late 1990s. One of these introductions, to Loch Skene, has proved successful. The vendace has recently disappeared from one of its English locations and so is now known only from one site in England and Loch Skene.

Curriculum

Biology Higher

Genetics and Adaptation
Selection and speciation: conservation of species through wildlife reserves

Biology Advanced Higher

Environmental Biology
Interactions in ecosystems: competition

Managing Environmental Resources Higher

Investigating Ecosystems: human activities – their effect on ecosystems and strategies for improvement.

Curriculum for Excellence

This activity will help pupils achieve the four capacities of learning by:

encouraging enthusiasm and motivation for learning;
encouraging openness to new thinking and ideas;
use of literacy and numeracy skills;
use of technology for learning;
thinking creatively and independently;
making reasoned evaluations;
evaluating environmental issues;
applying critical thinking in new contexts, and
creating and developing.

Ages

16-18 years [Language level of most resources is probably too high for the majority of younger pupils.]

Procedure

Ask pupils to write a scientific report on freshwater fish in Scotland. In their report they should:

use the piechart and relevant text in SNH Natural Heritage Trends: Freshwater Fish to describe trends in native freshwater fish populations in Scotland;
highlight the problems of exotic fish and North American signal crayfish; and
write a case study of the vendace, the rarest of UK freshwater fish, threats to the species including non-native species, and the reintroduction of the vendace to Scotland.

Pupils can find the information they need from the sources below.

Websites

Other resources

North American signal crayfish leaflet
www.snh.org.uk/pubs/results.asp?q=American+signal+crayfish&searchdest=2