Education
Our Education program provides a platform for educators to engage with each other and their students in the goal of better understanding and protecting global biodiversity. We hope to ignite young people to reimagine how we care for the planet. We engage students and teachers through workshops and institutes, biodiversity-focused educational materials tied to curriculum and standards. We engage learners in schools and campuses, nature centers, and community events aimed to inspire and connect people with the natural world.
Are you an educator looking for biodiversity education materials for your classroom?
We offer a wide variety of lesson plans, activities, and materials including, design challenges, multi-day activities, short engaging activities focused on images and data, instructor tips, video discussions, and more. Topics include classroom-friending GIS mapping, explorations of charismatic groups like hummingbirds and dragonflies, concept-building activities to better understand key biodiversity concepts such as species range, species richness, and species rarity. We make extensive use of engaging data visualization, real-world data, and research problems applied to the global biodiversity crisis and solutions. Our Teaching Tools portal includes clear lesson objectives and downloadable classroom materials for diverse learners, including Spanish Language content.
Half-Earth Project Educator Ambassadors
In addition to being a leading scientist and communicator, E.O. Wilson was a popular college professor, mentoring four decades of students. He believed passionately in the power of education and in adopting new methods and technologies. We honor his commitment and legacy through the Half-Earth Project Educator Ambassadors network, an active network of educators engaging youth in biodiversity science and conservation. Today the network includes U.S. classroom teachers across disciplines looking for ways to bring biodiversity and conservation into their curriculums— from life sciences to arts and humanities, as well as non-formal educators within outreach organizations such as nature centers.
Educator Ambassadors gain access to high-quality educational resources for middle school- to college-level student work. Biodiversity-focused resources range from compelling videos, engaging images and data, guided inquiries into biodiversity, and conservation design challenges focused on mapping and conservation priority analyses. Many lessons make use of the Half-Earth Map, our professional conservation prioritization tool that students can use for their own projects inside and outside of the classroom. We aim for our learning resources to supplement and support, not replace, experiential learning in the field.
“The Hearst Foundation is proud to support The Half-Earth Project’s Educator Ambassador Program because of its unique model for engaging teachers and students in the exploration of our shared planet. The program is helping to ensure that biodiversity science is accessible to children of all backgrounds and, importantly, helping to educate the next generation of conservation leaders.”
Meet our Master Educator Ambassadors!
Jenna Adams shares her love of science and learning with her middle school students in Baltimore City. You can also find Jenna exploring local biodiversity on walks with her dog while listening to a podcast. She earned a BS in Kinesiology from Penn State University and her Master’s in Education from Johns Hopkins University. Jenna shares her love of science and learning with her middle school students in Baltimore City where she’s been teaching for over eight years. She knows that teachers are constant learners and seeks exciting new science information through books, podcasts, and her city. Jenna loves being a part of the Half-Earth team where she gets to collaborate with educators to explore topics of biodiversity and nature.
Tamara Jolly discovered her deep love for nature as an adult and hopes to instill environmental appreciation and advocacy into the lives of her students. As a high school science teacher in Baltimore City, Tamara has worked for 13 years in the classroom. She looks for any opportunity to infuse nature and the environment into her lessons. As a woman of color, she has experienced moments of being excluded from natural spaces firsthand. She now hopes to increase access and inclusivity of nature for traditionally marginalized communities, while also expanding nature education opportunities in urban classrooms. This mission is so close to Tamara’s heart that she decided to take a year-long sabbatical from the classroom to study environmental and natural resources conservation at the SUNY School of Environmental Science and Forestry’s Ranger School. Tamara also works as a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion consultant, facilitating DEI workshops, and is a fellow at the Adirondack Diversity Initiative.
Selim Tlili has roots in Puerto Rico and Tunisia. Selim currently teaches high school math and biology at the Ramaz School in Manhattan and was formerly an educator at the Rudolph Steiner school and New York Public Schools. Selim studied biology in college before earning master’s degrees in Environmental Health at Hunter College and in Environmental Humanities at Harvard University. Selim participated in an introductory GIS mapping workshop that Esri made available to Half-Earth Educator Ambassadors, and as a result, he has been able to offer projects for his students right in their school neighborhood. In addition to his stellar teaching and writing skills, Selim is fluent in both English and Spanish and helps translate Educator Ambassador materials into Spanish.
For more information on our Education program or how to become a Half-Earth Educator Ambassador, contact Dennis Liu, PhD, dliu@eowilsonfoundation.org.
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