Teacher preparation:

Overarching learning goal: The aim of this activity is to engage student curiosity in biodiversity and to encourage students in rich, high order thinking around this topic. By participating in this activity students will develop their own ideas, build their knowledge, attitudes and values through in-depth learning experiences around biodiversity.

Teacher content information:

Student and classroom organisation:

Step 1.

Begin by clarifying student knowledge on biodiversity. Engage students in a class discussion around the following questions:

What is biodiversity?
Where is biodiversity?
How important is biodiversity?
What is happening to biodiversity?

Step 2.

Using a large blank book, create a big biodiversity book for your class. This should be a collaborative book that all students can contribute to.

In this book record:

Signs of biodiversity at your school/home
Things you love about biodiversity
Ways to help biodiversity
Things you would like to do for biodiversity at your school
Questions you have about biodiversity (include answers and how you answered them)
Maps
Pictures (drawings, photos)
Drawings
Stories and poems

You could create chapters (such as School, Home, All over the world OR Plants, Animals, Rivers, Rainforests OR Poems, Stories, Drawings) or let the book flow naturally, with one page or topic inspiring the next.

You could use your big biodiversity book throughout the term or year, recording things you and your students discover about biodiversity throughout this time. This could be as simple as how the biodiversity at your school changes with the seasons, how the weather affects local biodiversity, reports on excursions to places involving biodiversity and holidays students take to places with biodiversity.

Questions to stimulate discussion/investigation

Why should we look at biodiversity?
How do we feel about biodiversity?
Who and what is a part of biodiversity?
What is the significance of biodiversity for our lives?
What things have happened in the past to influence biodiversity now?
What actions for biodiversity can we take in our classroom/at our school/at home?

Make a big biodiversity book

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