Teaching Tools About Biodiversity
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.
Learning Activities for PreK-2nd grade
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Lessons & activities
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.
GradePreK-2SubjectsArts & craftsThemeWildlife & biodiversity -
Lessons & activities
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.
GradePreK-23-5ThemeWildlife & biodiversity
Learning Activities for 3rd-5th grade
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Lessons & activities
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.
Grade3-5SubjectsScience & STEMThemeWildlife & biodiversity -
Lessons & activities
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.
Grade3-5SubjectsMathThemeWildlife & biodiversity -
Lessons & activities
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.
Grade3-5SubjectsScience & STEMThemeWildlife & biodiversity -
Lessons & activities
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.
Grade3-5SubjectsScience & STEMThemeWildlife & biodiversity -
Presentations
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.
Grade3-5SubjectsScience & STEMThemeWildlife & biodiversity -
Lessons & activities
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.
Grade3-5SubjectsScience & STEMThemeWildlife & biodiversity
Learning Activities for 6th-8th grade
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Lessons & activities
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.
Grade6-8SubjectsScience & STEMThemeWildlife & biodiversityEcosystems & habitats -
Lessons & activities
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.
Grade6-8SubjectsEnglish language artsThemeWildlife & biodiversity -
Lessons & activities
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.
Grade6-8SubjectsScience & STEMMathThemeWildlife & biodiversity -
Lessons & activities
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.
Grade6-8SubjectsSocial studiesThemeWildlife & biodiversity -
Lessons & activities
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.
Grade6-8SubjectsScience & STEMThemeWildlife & biodiversity -
Lessons & activities
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.
Grade6-8SubjectsArts & craftsThemeWildlife & biodiversityEcosystems & habitats -
Lessons & activities
Measuring Biodiversity: Tech Tactics
Students will evaluate data collection methods used by wildlife scientists to design a biodiversity study.
Grade6-8SubjectsScience & STEMThemeWildlife & biodiversity -
Lessons & activities
Climate Change and Biodiversity
Students will perform vulnerability assessments on species to determine how well they can adapt to the impacts of climate change.
Grade6-89-12SubjectsScience & STEMEnglish language artsThemeWildlife & biodiversityClimate change -
Lessons & activities
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 organizations. 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.
Grade6-89-12ThemeWildlife & biodiversityEcosystems & habitats
Multimedia resources
Video: What is biodiversity?
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.
