On the Web: Measuring Biodiversity across North America
Once uttered only in the halls of academe, Biodiversity has made its way to the elementary, middle, and secondary school classroom. The word evokes ideas of total number of unique things, such as genes, genera, and species, and their abundances. As concepts go, biodiversity is big, which makes measuring it in the field and in the laboratory quite a challenge. But the classroom is neither a science laboratory, nor a field site, which is why this lesson plan uses interactive mapping technology to bring biodiversity field data to the classroom. To use this biodiversity lesson plan, please download all five files below. Right click the mouse over the link and save to your hard drive.
Download the Biodiversity Lesson Plan [ PDF File ]
Map Tutor [ Flash Interactive ]
Sampling Tutor [ Flash Interactive ]
Table_2 [ Word Document ]
Table_5 [ Word Document ]
Survival! A Behring Hall of Mammals Self-Guided Activity
This self-guided activity is a problem-based group lesson for students to use in the Behring Family Hall of Mammals. Pre- and post-visit activities are included.
Download activity. [pdf file]
Classroom Resources for Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely
These lesson plans are designed to extend the Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely exhibition into the classroom. The activities will help students explore the Arctic environment as a dynamic and changing ecosystem and learn more about the cultures and perspectives of Arctic residents. This activity set is interdisciplinary and includes topics across the middle-school social studies and science curricula.
Go to the Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely. [website]
Go to the Forces of Change Portal . [website]
Classroom Resources. [website]
Classroom Resources for Lewis and Clark as Naturalists
The connecting theme of Lewis and Clark and Naturalists is natural history as it was 200 years ago, the flora and fauna as witnessed and recorded along the trail by Lewis and Clark. However, U.S. and world history, geography, ethnography, and literature are each entangled with nearly every facet of the story. Here, then, are lesson plans and suggested resources that reach across the curriculum.
Go to the Lewis and Clark as Naturalists. [website]
Classroom Resources. [website]
Instructors Guide to Anthropology Explored
The Instructors Guide is designed to help students grasp the main ideas and concepts of Anthropology Explored: The Best of Smithsonian AnthroNotes, 2nd Edition. Following the format of Anthropology Explored, the Instructors Guide is organized by chapter, with each having a 1-2 page summary discussion questions, essay questions, short answer questions, and a glossary of terms.
Additional information on Anthropology Explored. [website]
Instructors Guide. [pdf file]
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