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.

  • Educator's Resource Guide

    Educator's Resource Guide

Learning Activities

  • 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 2020 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.

  • 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.

  • Living Planet Report 2020: 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.

     

  • Living Planet Report 2022: Youth Edition

    A Guide for Our Future

    The Living Planet Report: Youth Edition uses engaging infographics and visuals to highlight the state of our planet and explain the causes of decline, what this means for us, and what we can all do to help reverse nature loss.

     

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.

More Biodiversity Resources

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