Here you will find a wide range of educational resources, lesson plans, videos, and hands-on projects to help you teach students of all ages about wildlife and habitat conservation. You can also browse our teaching tools to find Resources and Videos that meet your individual teaching needs.
Nature can bring the language arts curriculum to life! Not only can nature act as a source of inspiration for writing, including stories and poetry, but it also provides opportunities for observation, inquiry and key skill development.
Language arts teaches us how to communicate, how to interpret the world around us, how to work together to solve problems, and how to capture, record and share information and ideas with others.
By infusing nature-base learning into language arts, we can foster literacy while inspiring a deeper connection and appreciation for the environment!
Check out the tips below for some easy ways to integrate environmental and outdoor education into your next language arts lesson!
For Early Years and Elementary
- Through Nature Journalling, you can foster observation and writing skills by encouraging youth to draw, label and describe the things they observe in nature.
- Engage youth in a brainstorming session to create a personal mind map illustrating their connections to the ocean.
- Build research, speaking and writing skills by having youth conduct a mock interview with a local animal of plants species, then having them use the information they collect to write an illustrative article!
- Youth can practice their listening skills by learning some of the common birdsongs from species in their local area.
For Middle Years and High School
- Engage youth in researching, developing and presenting information on their local watershed through a hands-on or digital display. Youth can choose from a variety of display styles, including story, art, video or even 3D models.
- Through role-playing, have students explore the impacts of climate change from a variety of perspectives.
- Develop students’ verbal presentation skills by engaging in a debate about the positive and negative effects of invasive species.
- Challenge stereotypes and encourage youth to examine the difference between facts and opinion by exploring our relationship with urban wildlife, including those often seen as pests such as skunks and racoons.