World Wildlife Fund Launches Free Educational Resource for Teachers and Parents

WASHINGTON, DC, October 4, 2017 – World Wildlife Fund (WWF) connects educators and parents with the materials they need to help kids explore and understand the natural world around them with a new educational resource, Wild Classroom. Now available for free download, Wild Classroom is a growing library of species-focused toolkits that can be used to enhance children’s learning inside or outside of a traditional learning environment.

Aligned to US national education standards, the toolkits will include a teacher’s resource guide, fact sheet, and learning activities for science, writing, social studies, art, and physical education that can be easily integrated into an educator’s daily lesson plan. Each will interweave engaging species-specific content with other relevant conservation issues, like habitat loss, poaching and illegal wildlife trade, climate change, and more.

“Iconic species like tigers and elephants can serve as a window to the broader world of conservation,” said Terry Macko, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications at WWF. “Our planet’s wildlife and wild places will only persist if people understand their importance and care enough to fight for them. It’s on us to inspire the next generation of conservationists, and we believe Wild Classroom empowers teachers and parents to contribute greatly to this mission.”

With its debut, Wild Classroom premieres its first toolkit all about tigers. The tiger toolkit is designed to teach elementary school students about this iconic species, the threats it faces, and how protecting tigers and their habitat keeps their environment healthy for other species, including humans.  Wild Classroom will release additional toolkits every few months through summer 2018. A sea turtle toolkit is scheduled for release in November 2017, followed by a polar bear toolkit which will be available by January 2018.

Wild Classroom expands WWF’s suite of educational offerings for teachers and parents, which also includes Panda Nation, a peer-to-peer fundraising initiative educators can use with their students, and the WWF Together App, an interactive application designed to bring the user closer to the stories of elephants, giant pandas, jaguars, and many other fascinating species.

Teachers and parents who join Wild Classroom will receive access to the growing library of toolkits, regular email updates, fun ways (like apps, quizzes, and videos) to learn more about life on our planet, meaningful opportunities to support wildlife and nature, and the latest conservation news from WWF.

Wild Classroom can be downloaded for free at wildclassroom.org.