Activities
- A biodiversity activity from the San Diego Zoo.
- Do this “Biological Diversity and Conservation” (doc) wordsearch puzzle with answers (doc).
- The lab in this Teacher’s Domain lesson (You must register for free to access) could be started while studying “Population Growth,” The lab involves growing duckweed over a 2 or 3 week period, but students also compare it’s growth to that of other invasive species shown in the included videos.
- A “Global Warming: Early Warning Signs” (doc) curriculum guide includes many activities.
- Show students the “BioDaVersity Code” video, a take-off on “The Diversity Code.” The video explains in a clever way why it is important to maintain biodiversity.
- Have students download and play “Power Up.” In the game the planet “Helios” is facing ecological devastation and you’re in a race against time to save the planet. The game was designed by a group of young people with help from IBM. It is a great way to learn about our ecological problems. (However, the game requires 1 gig of ram)
Labs
- Try this “Biodiversity In Ponds” lab with “Pond Identification Sheet” and scoring rubric.
- The Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum has many biodiversity activities in its “Reflections on Earth: Biodiversity and Remote Sensing” teacher’s guide. I produced this “Biodiversity Lab” (doc) with teacher notes (doc) and lab key (doc) from the Smithsonian guide.
- If students have access to computers on the internet, try Glencoe’s, “Researching Information on Exotic Pets” Internet BioLab. Mrs. Rebello has created an “Exotic Pets” worksheet (doc) which has a better link for finding the information that students need.
Links
- Enter the local zip code and the site will load the trees, mammals, amphibians, and wildflowers found in the area. A comprehensive set of field guides are also available for trees, mammals, amphibians, wildflowers, and much more: http://www.enature.com/home/
- Learn about the importance of plant conservation and the preservation of the rainforest: http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/Research/unseengarden/matrix1.shtml
- Biodiversity in the Indian River Lagoon: http://www.sms.si.edu/IRLSpec/index.htm
- Take a virtual endangered species field trip: http://www.field-trips.org/sci/endanger/index.htm
- Learn about island biogeography and fragmentation: http://www.bagheera.com/inthewild/spot_spisland.htm
- Biodiversity of Mexico: http://www.vivanatura.org/
- of biodiversity in the Florida Everglades with great photos: http://fire.biol.wwu.edu/trent/alles/Everglades.pdf
- “Bagheera,” a website for endangered species: http://www.bagheera.com/
- The American Museum of Natural History’s biodiversity site: http://www.amnh.org/nationalcenter/it_takes_all_kinds/index.html
- The World Wildlife Fund’s “Wildfinder”: http://www.worldwildlife.org/wildfinder/
- Conservation Internations’s “Diversity Hotspots”: http://www.biodiversityhotspots.org/xp/Hotspots
- “Speciation and Biodiversity” discusses the development of new species and includes educator resources: http://actionbioscience.org/biodiversity/wilson.html
- The “Tree of Life” web project provides information about the diversity of organisms on Earth, their evolutionary history (phylogeny), and characteristics: http://tolweb.org/tree/phylogeny.html
- Animal diversity web: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/
- The World Conservation Union’s “Red List” of threatened species: http://www.iucnredlist.org/
- The website for “An Inconvenient Truth” includes a study guide: http://www.aninconvenienttruth.com.au/truth/