Sustainability and Conservation is a relaxed and fun way to engage students in sustainability and conservation subjects. Through hands on activities the learners will learn to apply these themes into their daily lives by exploring nature. Through five workshops they will become ambassadors of conservation and sustainability and will be able to teach their family and friends about it.

In case of rainy days or inaccessibility to outdoor areas ‘Plan B’s’ have been created: games modified to limited indoor areas. There is a section on additional information, this provides online links to websites and reports that are related to the resource’s subject areas.

Learning outcomes

Art and Design

• EXA 2-02a: I have the opportunity to choose and explore an extended range of media and technologies to create images and objects, comparing and combining them for specific tasks.

Sciences – Biodiversity and interdependence:

• SCN 2-01a: I can identify and classify examples of living things, past and present, to help me appreciate their diversity. I can relate physical and behavioural characteristics to their survival or extinction.
• SCN 2-02a: I have contributed to the design or conservation of a wildlife area.

Sciences – Topical Sciences:

• SCN 2-20b: I can report and comment on current scientific news items to develop my knowledge and understanding of topical science.

Social Studies – People, place and environment

• SOC 2-08a: I can describe the major characteristic features of Scotland’s landscape and explain how these are formed.
• SOC 2-08b: I can describe the physical processes of a natural disaster and discuss its impact on people and the landscape.

In this resource

• Sessions (each session includes any additional slides / handouts that are required for running the session):
  • Session 1: Introduction – The learners are introduced to the concepts of sustainability, protection and conservation. The idea of art inspired by nature is introduced and the learners create their own art inspired by nature.
  • Session 2: Conservation and National Parks – This workshop aims to explain the different threats that wildlife face from human activity. The concept of National Parks as a way of protecting and saving wildlife will be introduced using the Cairngorms as an example. By the end of the workshop they will have come up with ways to save the wildcats given the threats in their present day habitat.
  • Session 3: Citizen Science – The aim of this workshop is to show the learners how they can be scientists and gather information on animals to contribute to scientific research. They will learn about the local flora and fauna around their school, identify it and log it into a Scottish scientific database as well as understanding the concept of a niche.
  • Session 4: Waste and Pollution – The aim of this workshop is to make the learners conscious of the different types of wastes and pollution in daily lives. By the end they will have come up with their own solutions to reduce different types of waste and pollution in the environments.
  • Session 5: Project Making Session – This is the fifth and last workshop where the learners make their nature related recycled projects.
• Additional Information: a selection of subjects that are related to the content of this resource, along with a brief description of each subject and a link to further information on that subject.
• Alternative Session Plans: a selection of alternative or additional session plans that can either be substituted in place of a session in the case of barriers to delivery (e.g: weather), or used in addition to the sessions to expand the content of the resource.

This resource was created as part of the GeoScience Outreach Course which is a 4th year undergraduate course in the School of GeoSciences aiming to provide students with the opportunity to develop their own science communication and engagement project.

Author: Moa Bell, adapted by Andrew Ferguson.

This resource is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license and has been made available on TES Connect which hosts a range of lesson materials for early years, primary, secondary, and special needs teaching.

Go to Sustainability and Conservation on TES to view and download this resource

Cover image is ‘Scottish Wildcats’ by Peter Trimming on Flickr. CC BY 2.0.