Education: Biodiversity Activities
Background
There's a lot of talk these days in the conservation community about preserving biodiversity. What exactly is biodiversity? The word is a contraction of "biological diversity," a phrase that has recently come to underlie the conservation mission of many large organizations. Simply put, biodiversity is the variety of living things in the world.
The Wild Animal Park has a vast butterfly exhibit that holds up to 65 butterfly species. Scientists estimate that there are 8,000,000 species of insects on Earth, only 950,000 of which have been identified. Those 65 butterfly species at the Wild Animal Park are a mere .007 percent of the known insect species! In contrast, at the San Diego Zoo the animal collection includes about 225 species of mammals. That represents about 5.6 percent of all the mammal species on Earth. (There are about 4,000 identified mammal species.)
There is so much left unknown about our natural world that the goal of maintaining biodiversity is like protecting a library of books that have not yet been read. Who knows what precious information could be discovered in each organic volume?
The value of maintaining biodiversity is ecologic, esthetic, and economic. It is human nature to wonder, "How can this help me?" Beyond preserving the pure wonder and beauty of nature, maintaining biodiversity can help humans in food production, medical discoveries, and other substances that could have commercial value. Maintaining a great variety of food crops protects us from total destruction of food by disease. It is true what botanists say about the possibility of finding cures for human diseases in the yet undiscovered plants of remote regions. Twenty-five percent of all prescription medicines in the United States have active ingredients that were originally derived from plants, according to World Wildlife Fund.
For more information and activities about biodiversity, check out the two-volume set Windows on the Wild - Biodiversity Basics, produced by the World Wildlife Fund and published by Acorn Naturalists. This set includes an educator's guide and a student book filled with biodiversity activities across the curriculum. The activities are geared for middle and high school.
Included here is a sampling of biodiversity activities from our Education Department. Watch this site for information about upcoming teacher workshops in which teachers come to the Zoo or Wild Animal Park and do lots more.
The Value of Biodiversity
Teacher Information (grades 9 to 12)
Subjects:
Life Science, Social Science
Time: One class period
When should this activity be done:
As a unit opener or closer
Materials:
- The handout, one print for each student
- A picture of a living thing, from slime molds to giant pandas. The organism should be identified and the pictures should be small enough to be taped onto the students shirts. One for each student.
Optional: Write up a brief "bio" of each organism containing its native habitat, its place in the food chain, and its niche.
Prep Timesaver: A student assistant could be enlisted to cut the pictures from magazines and identify them by the photo captions in the magazines. (It is important to have a wide representation of organisms beyond the vertebrates.)
Academic objective: Students explore the monetary cost of preserving biodiversity.
Social/affective objective: Students discover which organisms they "value."
Instructions
Tape one organism picture to each student as they enter the room. A FRIENDLY REMINDER ABOUT THE NATURE OF TEENS—try to give "unpopular" organisms (fungus, bacteria) to the well-liked students and "popular" organisms to the shrinking violets in your class. You'll see why as the activity progresses. Distribute the handout.
Review the directions with the students. Allow ten minutes for students to "meet" all of the organisms in the room. Students should carry with them their handout and write down which species they would like to fund.
Ask students to return to their seats and finish allocating their $3 million. Stress the importance of including how the money will be spent and why they chose each organism. (Allow about five more minutes.)
Survey the students on their top choice organism. Find out how much money was spent on that organism. Listen to some of the ways the money will be spent and the justifications for the spending.
Go around the room species by species and find out if there are any organisms that no money was spent on. Explore with the students why such organisms were neglected.
Now drop this on them: choose a plant or fungus species that was not well funded. Tell the students that it has been determined that this plant has an extract that can raise the SAT score of anyone who drinks it by 500 points. This plant can only grow in desert habitats near Las Vegas, Nevada. Is anyone willing to pull their funding from their top ranked species to put towards habitat conservation for this lowly plant?
Extensions
Students find out about their designated organism's actual habitat, survival needs, and current population status.
Students research actual local and international conservation projects aimed at protecting biodiversity. (The Nature Conservancy and World Wildlife Fund are two organizations to start with.) Students find out how they can contribute to such conservation activities and take action.
