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Our Threatened Biodiversity


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We apologize for any inconvenience, but this lesson has been deleted from the Education World LESSON PLANNING archive because the Internet link that was integral to the lesson is no longer available online. We have deleted the lesson from our archives, but search engines will often lead you to this page. If we might redirect you, you will find many Earth Day lesson plans on our special Earth Day themed page.

  • copies of Our Threatened Biodiversity work sheet
  • copies of four pages from Earth Trends
    To access the Earth Trends data, go to the Earth Trends Web site; place the cursor over Biodiversity and Protected Areas in the navigation bar at the top of the page; click Data Tables and highlight Globally Threatened Species: Amphibians, Freshwater Fish, and Plants; and hit Select Data Table. Here you will be asked to submit a brief registration form before the PDF files are displayed. (You will need Acrobat Reader.) Print the first two pages of table data. Then highlight Globally Threatened Species: Mammals, Birds, and Reptiles and click Select Data Table, and print the first two pages of table data.
  • world outline maps (optional)

Lesson Plan

Earth Trends collects data about a wide range of environmental issues. Explain to students that in this lesson, they will use the organization's detailed data relating to Earth's threatened mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and plants to complete the Our Threatened Biodiversity work sheet.

Hand out copies of the work sheet and the four pages of statistics from Earth Trends.

Extension activities:

  • Have students choose a species category -- mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, or higher plants -- and calculate the total number of that group that is threatened in each of the eight areas of the world for which Earth Trends provides data. Have students use Earth Trend's data to create bar graphs or line graphs showing the number of threatened species in the six categories. Students can create multiple graphs; or they can create a single graph with multiple bars or lines that will make it easy to compare the status of different species. (NOTE: The Earth Trends data groups the Middle East and North Africa as an area separate from Asia and sub-Saharan Africa; they treat Central America and the Caribbean as an area separate from North America and South America.)
  • Challenge students to figure the percentage of the world's threatened species as a percentage of the total of all species in each of the eight areas of the world.
  • Ask students to select a species category. On a world outline map, they mark on each country the number of threatened species of that type.
  • Have students rank the world's countries in order from the one that is home to the most total threatened species to the one that has the fewest threatened species.

Assessment

Students will correctly answer at least seven of eight questions on the Our Threatened Biodiversity work sheet.
Answer Key: 1. 24 species 2. Australia 3. 142 species 4. plants 5. mammals 6. Brazil 7. Indonesia 8. South Africa Lesson Plan Source

Education World

Submitted By

Gary Hopkins

National Standards

MATHEMATICS: Number and Operations

  • GRADES 3 - 5
    NM-NUM.3-5.1 Understand Numbers, Ways of Representing Numbers, Relationships Among Numbers, and Number Systems
    NM-NUM.3-5.3 Compute Fluently and Make Reasonable Estimates

  • GRADES 6 - 8
    NM-NUM.6-8.1 Understand Numbers, Ways of Representing Numbers, Relationships Among Numbers, and Number Systems
    NM-NUM.6-8.3 Compute Fluently and Make Reasonable Estimates

  • GRADES 9 - 12
    NM-NUM.9-12.1 Understand Numbers, Ways of Representing Numbers, Relationships Among Numbers, and Number Systems
    NM-NUM.9-12.3 Compute Fluently and Make Reasonable Estimates
MATHEMATICS: Data Analysis and Probability
  • GRADES 3 - 5
    NM-DATA.3-5.2 Select and Use Appropriate Statistical Methods to Analyze Data

  • GRADES 6 - 8
    NM-DATA.6-8.2 Select and Use Appropriate Statistical Methods to Analyze Data

    GRADES 9 - 12
    NM-DATA.9-12.2 Select and Use Appropriate Statistical Methods to Analyze Data

MATHEMATICS: Connections

  • GRADES Pre-K - 12 NM-CONN.PK-12.3 Recognize and Apply Mathematics in Contexts Outside of Mathematics
SCIENCE SOCIAL SCIENCES: Geography TECHNOLOGY See more resources at our special Earth Day page.
Return to the Earth Day 2002 lesson plan page. -->

Originally published 04/05/2002
Last updated 03/28/2006