5/11/2021 Exploring Endangered Species | PLUM LANDING™ | PBS LearningMedia

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Exploring Endangered Species | PLUM
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 Lesson Plan Grades: 1-4 Collection: PLUM LANDING™

Overview Procedure Standards

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Learning activities
Part I 
Today your students will consider the neighborhood around your school from the perspective of an animal while they learn
about the things plants and animals need to survive.

1. Ask your students to name some of the animals that live near your school. Squirrels, raccoons, sparrows, spiders, and ants are
all animals that your students might find in your community. Then, ask how these animals survive in your neighborhood: where
do they find food, water, shelter, and space?

2. Explain that you are about to watch a video showing a group of students walking through a city neighborhood with a forest
ranger. Show the video A Forest in the City. (Note: This media gallery has two videos. You only need to show A Forest in the City
for the lesson.) As students watch, ask them to note the plants and animals the students in the video find, and how these
organisms get what they need to survive (food, water, shelter, and space).

3. Have a short discussion about the video. What animals and plants did the students and Ranger Jesse see on their urban hike?
How do they make their homes in the city? Be sure you introduce the term habitat.  A habitat is a place that provides an
organism with food, water, shelter, and space. In other words, a habitat is an organism's home.

4. Explain to students that they will now survey an outdoor setting near their school in order to find ideal habitats for imaginary
animals. Have students form groups of three, and give one Creature Card to each group. Tell students that each card includes
the name of an imaginary animal that needs a home somewhere near their school.

5. Have students draw what they think their creature might look like, based on the card's description. While they are doing this,
copy the text below on the flipchart or posterboard:

How the creature 

finds food
uses its habitat for shelter and space
finds water
interacts with other creatures

6. Head outdoors with the craft supplies you assembled and the drawings of students’ creatures. Show students the boundaries
of the outdoor space you would like them to keep to.

7. Explain that students should now find a place that looks like an ideal habitat for the creature, based on the information on the
flipchart. After they have identified a habitat for their creature, they should:

Come up with a fun name that describes a real living or nonliving part of their creature’s habitat, such as Asphalt Alley,
Ranger's Ridge, or Crickety Thicket.
Make a poster, using construction paper and craft supplies, for people visiting their habitat. The poster should show
what's special about the habitat and the creature that lives there. Posters should also include:
the name of the habitat
a drawing of their creature in the habitat, showing it either finding food or seeking shelter

Tell students they can draw several examples of the creature in its habitat. For example, they might draw one creature eating
and another sleeping in its shelter. They also may draw real animals, such as ants or birds, that they notice in the habitat. When
kids are done, have them tape their posters to craft sticks and place them in the ground in the habitat. Kids might need to tape
several craft sticks together in a cross shape to support the poster.
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8. Gather the group together and take a guided tour of each group’s habitat. Ask each group of students to explain:

How does the creature find its food and water? How does it use the habitat for shelter and space?
How do you think your creature might interact with the other creatures?
Before we did this activity, how many different kinds of habitats did you think we would find here?
Has your answer changed?

Before you head back indoors, wrap up by talking about some real animals students might find in their habitats, and discuss
how these animals find food, water, shelter, and space. 

Optional: If you have time, show your students the video Habitat Sweet Habitat when you return indoors. Have a short
discussion comparing the video with your students’ experiences. Where did the kids in the video find habitats for their
creatures? How were these habitats similar to or different from the ones your students identified? 

Part II
Today your students will consider how changes in habitats may affect the organisms that live there. By playing an interactive
food web game, they will experience how the different species of plants and animals in an ecosystem depend on one another. 

1. Ask your students to recall the creatures whose habitats they identified yesterday, and have a short discussion about the
balance between those creatures and the resources they need. What do their creatures eat? If their creatures eat other animals,
such as ants, what do they think those animals eat? What might happen if the creature’s food source disappeared? Use this
discussion to introduce the term “ecosystem.” Ecosystem is short for “ecological system.” The term describes the interactions
between the living and nonliving things in a given place. The plants, animals, and other living things in an ecosystem interact
and depend on one another in many ways. Your students will experiment with the interdependence of plants and animals in an
ecosystem as they play the game described in step 2. 

2. Have students play the game Mountain Scramble. If possible, have students play the game individually. If students need to
pair up or form larger groups, be sure those students alternate turns at the computer. You also might project the game on the
whiteboard and play it as a class. As students play, encourage them to think about balance in an ecosystem. 

When students have finished playing the game, have a discussion about the challenges in keeping an entire ecosystem in
balance. Ask questions such as: 

Was it easy or hard to keep your terrarium alive for 12 days? If it was hard, what made it hard?
What surprised you about the number of plants and animals you needed in order to keep your terrarium alive?
How might this ecosystem change if all the snowshoe hares disappeared? All the plants? All the predators? 
What kinds of plants and animals make up the ecosystem where you live? When you look outside, do you see more
plants or more animals? Why do you think this might be? 

3. Next, use the game as a segue into a discussion about endangered species. Ask students if any of the plants or animals
disappeared as they played the game. Most likely, they will all answer yes! Can students explain how or why those species
disappeared? Explain that, in the game, students could just add those species back to the game, but in the real world, plants and
animals that disappear completely are said to have gone extinct.  

4. Ask students if they have ever heard the term “endangered species.” If not, explain that endangered species are plants or
animals that, for a variety of reasons, are in danger of going extinct—of disappearing forever. When a species is endangered,
that means that very few individuals exist, often because they aren’t able to find the resources they need to survive. 

5. Then, ask students if they think there might be any endangered species living in their state. Students often know about the
plight of charismatic endangered species, such as pandas or tigers, but few recognize that endangered plants and animals live
in every part of the world, including right in their own state. Wrap up with a visit to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service
Endangered Species listing. Project the page on the whiteboard. Using the pull-down menus, find the common names of
endangered species in your state or county. Tell students that next time you meet, you will be learning about one of these
endangered species and discussing how you can help keep this species from going extinct. 

Part III
Today your students will synthesize what they have learned about habitats and ecosystems and will propose solutions for
helping endangered species that live in your state. 

1. Project the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service Endangered Species listing on the whiteboard again. As a class, choose one of the
endangered species from your state list.

Note: As an alternative to having students focus on endangered species, you could have them learn about your state plant or
animal. They could explore its habitat and what it needs to survive. Where can it find those things? Can your state plant or
animal live in your neighborhood? Why or why not? If not, how might you be able to create a habitat for it in your city? As a

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class or in groups, students can find information about your state’s official plants and animals on your state government’s home
page. For example, Kentucky lists a state bird, butterfly, horse, fish, and flower. If you choose to focus on your state plant or
animal, adjust steps 2 and 3 below as needed.

2. Have students work in small groups to find out more about endangered species in their state. Assign student groups to one of
the questions below:

Where does the endangered species live? Find where on a map of your state. 
What does the endangered species need to survive? Describe its habitat, what it eats (remember, carnivorous plants, such
as the Venus flytrap, are endangered in some states!), and what, if anything, eats it.  
Can the species live in your neighborhood? Why or why not?
Why is the species endangered?

3. After about 20 minutes, have students report back to the group on their findings. Loop back to Part I of the lesson and its
emphasis on habitats. Ask students:
Knowing what you now know about habitats and ecosystems, what do you think people can do to help keep this endangered
species from going extinct? To give students additional ideas about how to help the plight of endangered species, you might
read aloud highlights from one of the Success Stories for species in your state. 

4. Tell students it is now their job to spread the word about endangered species. How would they educate their friends and
families about the plight of endangered species? You might have groups create educational posters to hang in the cafeteria or
other locations where other students will see them, or produce informational flyers to send home. If possible, you might
arrange for your class to present their posters to a younger group of students to teach them about habitats and endangered
species. If you have the resources, you also could produce a class video in the form of a news program or documentary
summarizing what your students have learned.

Culminating activity
Ask students to talk about the balance between plants and animals in an ecosystem. How do the different species in an
ecosystem depend on each other? How can changing this balance sometimes cause species to become endangered? How can
people prevent endangered species from going extinct?

Next Generation Science Standards Correlations

Disciplinary Core Ideas

LS1.A: Structure and Function

LS2.A: Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems
LS2.B: Cycles of Matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems
LS2.C: Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning, and Resilience
LS4.D: Biodiversity and Humans
ESS2.D: Weather and Climate

Science and Engineering Practices

Asking Questions and Defining Problems

Developing and Using Models
Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking
Planning and Carrying Out Investigations
Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information

Crosscutting Concepts

Patterns
Cause and Effect: Mechanism and Explanation
Scale, Proportion, and Quantity
Systems and System Models
Energy and Matter: Flows, Cycles, and Conservation
Structure and Function

 Previous: Overview Next: Standards 

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Curriculum

Science Earth and Space Science Life Science

Diversity of Life Ecology

Human Impacts on Earth Systems

Basic Needs of Living Things Ecosystem Relationships

Food Webs

More from the PLUM LANDING™ Collection

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