Current Events with THE WILD In Your Classroom is designed to give students and teachers flexibility and choice. Each month (or whatever time frame the teacher prefers), students are challenged to explore THE WILD’s library of podcast episodes and find the one that appeals to them the most. This approach enhances student buy-in and supports intrinsic motivation. Once students have had the chance to finish listening to their episode they can complete a short assignment designed to help them reflect on their experience and consider what insights they value the most from the episode...MORE

The Earth is home to an estimated 8.7 million species that provide an array of ecological and environmental significant ecosystem services estimated to be worth over $33 trillion. Yet the species that call our planet home are under threat from a variety of  human impacts including habitat loss, invasive species, pollution, climate change and overharvest. This makes the work of wildlife conservation experts featured in THE WILD critical in helping to protect the future of biodiversity. The goal of this assignment is to help students advocate for a species of their choice and raise public awareness of its important and precarious future...MORE 

One of the best things about THE WILD is the way topics explore important, relevant and well known ecological issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss and ecosystem services but in exciting new venues with innovative human partners. Each episode expertly blends awe-inspiring wildlife stories with intimate descriptions of the people working to protect our most vital natural resources. 

These stories provide outstanding entry points for discussions in the classroom. THE WILD in Your Classroom provides reflection questions for a number of episodes to help teachers start these discussions and spark student learning.

Each available episode offers thought-provoking discussion questions, is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standard (NGSS) by Core Idea(s), Practice(s) and Crosscutting Concept(s) and is intended for a high school life science course, but could easily be modified for other age levels and class types. This assignment is designed to be completed by students digitally, but can easily be modified to be completed as a paper copy by replacing the text boxes with writing lines...MORE

The fate of our planet and the struggle to conserve wildlife is at the center of each episode of THE WILD. For teachers looking to have students conduct more detailed investigations, THE WILD provides the perfect opportunity to engage students in the debate of how we can best utilize and preserve environmental resources. 

Wildlife editorials with THE WILD in Your Classroom is a great way for students to tap into their own interests while also developing their own comprehensive investigations. Each editorial focuses on a specific wildlife conservation challenge with an episode of THE WILD serving as an anchoring phenomena to inspire students to delve deeper into the issue. Their research culminates in students writing their own editorials to try and sway the general public to their line of thinking. Writing exercises like these foster a number of important Next Generation Science Skills including...MORE

THE WILD provides a powerful resource for exciting students as they explore storylines and case studies in the classroom. Each episode can serve as a powerful anchoring phenomena to engage and motivate students. A great example of this would be the Wolf Management Storyline which focuses on wolves in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). Students are divided into eight stakeholder groups including the National Park Service, cattle ranchers and local indigenous groups. Their task is to research the issue extensively and debate the question of how best to manage the wolf population in the GYE. 

The episode of THE WILD titled “The Wolf Ranger” becomes a critical part of this Wolf Management Storyline...MORE