Teaching Tools About Biodiversity

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Through the activities within this toolkit, students will gain an understanding of the importance of nature and how all living things are connected. These resources are geared towards students in grades 6-8.

Background Resources for Educators

The biodiversity resource guide is designed to give you all the information you need to teach your students about biodiversity and the impacts of human activity. The guide provides basic biodiversity facts, why biodiversity and nature matter, what threats our planet's biodiversity is facing, what WWF is doing to help, and what kids can do to help. The classroom presentation reflects this information in an easy-to-give interactive slideshow. Included in the notes are prompts to help guide the lesson, with bolded vocabulary terms and opportunities to integrate discussion points. Best suited for students in grades 3-8.

  • Educator's Resource Guide

    Educator's Resource Guide

  • Classroom Presentation

    Classroom Presentation

Learning Activities for PreK-2nd grade

Use these activities to build important character traits such as confidence and respect, while learning about animals!

  • Arts Education

    Room to Grow

    Engage your students with an art project aimed at celebrating their unique strengths and fostering a growth mindset. Through this activity, they'll learn and uncover their leadership skills as they reflect on their talents and future aspirations.

  • If You Can't Say Anything Nice...

    In this SEL activity, children will use vocabulary skills to identify different emotions they feel when thinking of various animals. Children will learn that every animal brings value to its ecosystem while relating it to their own lives and embracing diversity amongst people.

Learning Activities for 3rd-5th grade

By participating in these activities, students will gain an understanding and appreciation for the unique roles animals play in their ecosystems.

  • Science

    Biodiversity Escape Room

    Challenge your students with this team-building, escape room-style exercise exploring ecological roles within an ecosystem and how biodiversity is connected to ecosystem health. While solving the puzzles, students will learn to recognize how their own actions contribute to a team's success.

  • Math

    Conservation Calculations: Species of Asia

    Have your students practice multiplication, division, basic graphing, and multi-step word problems while learning about pandas, snow leopards, pangolins, and other Asian animals.

  • Science

    The "Good Guys" of Ecosystems

    Learners will read animal ID cards of some misunderstood species and the significant roles they have in nature. They will learn about the importance of every organism in an ecosystem and how these “bad guys” are actually “good guys” through the part they play in their ecosystem.

  • Don't Judge a Snake by Its Scales

    Children will learn to view stereotyped ‘bad guys’ for more than their first impressions. This SEL lesson teaches various aspects of social awareness and will also encourage kids to look inward at their own identities and perceptions as a practice in self-awareness.

  • Science

    Animal Adaptations Classroom Presentation

    This easy-to-use PowerPoint presentation is designed to introduce your students to animal adaptations. Through the slides, students will learn about the different functions of adaptations and identify adaptations as physical or behavioral.

  • Science

    Animal Adaptations ID Game

    Following the classroom presentation on adaptations, students can delve deeper into the topic through an interactive card game. This activity aims to reinforce their understanding of how different species utilize distinctive physical and behavioral traits for survival and self-defense.

Learning Activities for 6th-8th grade

Using data, creativity, and/or their own research/observations, learners will gain a deeper understanding of the human activities threatening biodiversity and how this disrupts nature's balance that we all depend on.

  • Science

    The Connections Between Us

    To understand the interdependence of living things, students will participate in a role-playing activity that demonstrates the vast impacts of threats to our planet’s biodiversity and how biomes and species are connected.

  • Language Arts

    This Just In: News Report

    Students will deliver a news report to inform their peers of the current state of our planet's biodiversity, using facts and statistics from the Living Planet Report.

  • Math

    The Future of Species

    Using data around threatened or endangered species, students will create a graph and draw inferences on the probability of these species' survival on this planet if we don’t make serious changes.

  • Science

    Biodiversity Audit

    Students will perform a biodiversity audit of their local grounds, following similar steps as scientists in the field. Based on their findings, they will evaluate the property based on how well it can support species and devise a plan for how they can increase its biodiversity score.

  • STEM

    Biomimicry Design Challenge

    Upon learning how scientists are using adaptations found in nature to devise products that use Earth's resources more sustainably, students will then use their creativity to develop an idea for a product that is healthier for the planet by mimicking the behavior of an animal or plant.

  • Arts Education

    Biodiversity Mosaic

    Students will create an artwork piece that reflects their interpretation of biodiversity. After learning about all that biodiversity encompasses, as a group, they will then piece their artwork together to create a large collaborative representation of healthy biodiversity on Earth.

  • STEM

    Measuring Biodiversity: Tech Tactics

    Students will evaluate data collection methods used by wildlife scientists to design a biodiversity study.

  • Science

    Climate Change and Biodiversity

    Students will perform vulnerability assessments on species to determine how well they can adapt to the impacts of climate change.

  • Living Planet Report 2024: Youth Edition

    A Guide for Our Future

    The Living Planet Report is produced every two years by WWF, with input from leading experts and other organisations. It is a health-check for the planet, showing how the natural world is doing, what threats it faces and what this means for us humans. The conclusions and recommendations in the LPR are based on an analysis of a great many measures of biodiversity, one of the biggest being the Living Planet Index.

     

Biodiversity Video

Biodiversity supports everything in nature that we need to survive: food, clean water, medicine, and shelter. But what exactly is biodiversity and what is causing it to decline? Learn all about biodiversity and how you can help nature in your own community with this video from WWF Wild Classroom. For more educational videos and Q&A sessions with our experts, subscribe to WWF's Wild Classroom YouTube channel.

Test Your Knowledge

Check out Wild Classroom's Biodiversity collection on Kahoot! Academy to explore quizzes including Animal Roles Trivia, Threats to Biodiversity, and more.

More Biodiversity Resources

*Various image attributions: © WWF-Brazil/Adriano Gambarini| Trina Pate | Ola Jennersten/WWF-Sweden | Cat Holloway/WWF

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