Education Outside
Animal Homes in the Garden
First graders journey to the school garden to examine the habitats of garden animals. Using the provided graphic organizer, kids locate and sketch a critter and its habitat before returning it to its home.
National Wildlife Federation
Massive Migrations
Turn your students into flocks of migratory birds for this fun lesson on animal migration. Prior to the activity, the teacher creates four different migration routes in the classroom or any available open space, labeling nesting...
Umaine Museum of Art
Bony Fish Anatomy Worksheet
Take time to appreciate the beauty in the anatomy of animals with this cross-curricular art and science activity. After viewing examples of fish-themed artwork, children complete the included worksheet by labeling the...
National Park Service
Living & Non-Living Interactions
What better way to learn about ecosystems than by getting outside and observing them first hand? Accompanying a field trip to a local park or outdoor space, this series of collaborative activities engages children in...
BBC
Light and Shadows
Light is such an amazing thing! Elementary schoolers explore the wonderful world of light and shadow. The lesson is meant to be carried out on a whiteboard. Objects are placed in front of a light source, and learners must predict what...
Curated OER
Meet the Animals
The class will examine a series of live or stuffed animals in order to learn how different animals survive in distinctive habitats. As they examine each animal, they will be asked a series of critical thinking questions geared at getting...
Curated OER
Conservation in Small Spaces: Conservation
Students define conservation, identify actions that conserve habitat and those that reduce habitat, and generate ideas about how one can practice conservation in everyday life.
Curated OER
Food Chains and Food Webs
Fourth graders investigate food chains. In this living environment lesson, 4th graders begin to understand the interdependence of organisms. Students describe the connections organisms have to the ecosystem. Students research online,...
Curated OER
Forest Life- Wood Bug Study
Examine wood bugs and their habitat. Learners gather wood bugs and examine their bodies. Then discuss their body parts and how they help them survive. They also predict where they think wood bugs live to then graph the class results.
Curated OER
Woodland Animals and Their Habitat
Students explore the natural environment through a video and nature sounds tape. They keep journal's of the unit's activities and vocabulary terms. They play a web of interdependence game and compose a list of forest animals and write...
Curated OER
Animal Adaptations
Students will participate in classroom discussions and visit a website to learn more about animals and how well (or poorly) they've adapted to satisfying their needs in their natural habitats. This will help move them toward the goal, in...
Curated OER
Animals, Soil, Trees
Fourth graders describe the various kinds of soils and how plants and animals are affected by them. They describe the baic needs of plants, scoring at least a 3 or 4 on a 4-point rubic. Students are able to predict and/or infer what...
Channel Islands Film
Restoration Channel Islands Debate
Introduce learners to the debate format with an activity that uses the National Park Service's controversial Channel Islands restoration program as a topic. Class members learn how to generate provocative debate questions, how to prepare...
Curated OER
Making Connections, Linking Population and the Environment
Students find out that all habitats have a carrying capacity. They explore how the world's human population has grown markedly in the 20th century, and that humans impact environmental health. Students investigate that people can and...
Curated OER
Help! Someone Has Destroyed My Home!
Fifth graders use a mystery bag to discover ways in which humans endanger the life of animals by changing their habitat. In this animal habitat instructional activity, 5th graders work with a partner to design a solution to the problem...
Curated OER
Animal Groups
Learners explore animal groups. In this animal science lesson plan, students use pictures from magazines and classify the animals into five categories. Learners share why they categorized the animals the way they did.
Curated OER
Grizzly Habitat
Students find areas on playground where they would live if they were a grizzly bear, share their reasons for their choice, talk about habitat areas, and choose their sites again, based upon new information.
Curated OER
"For The Birds" [part II]
Students examine how Chinese and Japanese artists used different kinds of birds
as representations of ideas that were important in both cultures and create their own birds using the technique of origami.