Teaching Biodiversity: Hands On Methods for Natural Science
Can’t make it to Great Smoky Mountains National Park for a class field trip? Exploring your own schoolyard or a nearby park can be an adventure in discovery for you and your students! Not only is it fun to get outside, but the direct involvement of students and teachers in making inquiries, developing and testing hypotheses, and using knowledge for conservation is applicable to many curriculum standards. A variety of biodiversity activities have been developed by the education partners of the ATBI, including Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont, Pi Beta Phi Elementary School, Parks as Classrooms, NPS Resource Education, as well as some of the ATBI scientists. Try some of the following projects and please give is feedback on how they work. |
A flatheaded Mayfly (top) and Stonefly (bottom) collected by DLIA intern Stephen Gosnel.  Photo by Charles Wilder. |
1. Activities and Lessons:
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Mini-Taxa Inventory |  |
Easy Monitoring Technology |
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Invertebrate Collecting |  |
Leaf Litter Critters |
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Snail Collecting |  |
Water Quality (Volunteer Aquatic Monitoring Protocol) |
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Stream Ecology Basics (289 KB PDF file) |  |
Salamander Monitoring |
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Tardigrade Lab Protocol |  |
Instructor’s Guide to the Terrestrial Invertebrates (1MB PDF file) |
2. Website Links:
- "From Tennessee to Canada in a Day" by Judy Dulin
- Simple Soil Testing - Forestry Suppliers , Inc.
- Southern Pine Beetle Damage - North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources
- Learning to Birdwatch - Ornithology.com
- All About GPS - Trimble
- Good/Bad Fires - Discovery Education
- Catching insects - University of Kentucky Department of Entomology
- Key to the Identification of Insects to Order - Gordon's Key to Insect Orders
- Hemlock Wooly Adelgid Action Team - Save Our Hemlocks
- Forest Types in the GSMNP - Great Smoky Mountains National Park
- Tennessee Invasive Exotic Plants - Tennessee Exotic Plants Council
- Salamanders of Tennessee - Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency
- Forest Succession - Nichols School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University
- Tennessee Endangered Species - Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency
- Biodiversity Links by Melinda Wilson
- Fun & Games - World Wildlife Federation (WWF)
- Outdoor Education Tools and Techniques - Acorn Naturalists
- Biodiversity for Kids Links
- Come Discover the World - GLO-BIO
- Sites for Kids - World Rainforest Information Portal
- Biodiversity Tree - Kids for Conservation Today and Tomorrow
- Biokids Activities
- Kids Zone - Canadian Biodiversity Network
- Kids & Teens Links - dmoz open directory project
- Xpeditions - National Geographic
- Hands on the Land - A National Network of Field Classrooms Linking Students, Teachers, and Parents to their Public Lands
