Focus: Endangered Primates
Angelique Felix asked bloggers to write a post about kids and animals for “World Animal Day” on October 4th. We are huge animal lovers in our house, and decided to share endangered species projects for kids.
Facts about Endangered Species
- An endangered species is one whose numbers are so small that it is at risk of extinction.
- A species is “endangered” or “threatened” when it is suffers: damage to its habitat; disease or predation of the species; and hazards to the continued life of the species.
- Factors that threaten creature on Earth include deforestation, water scarcity, erosion, pollution, climate change, overfishing, oil and gas development, infrastructure, and illegal wildlife trade.
- Around 50% of all endangered species live in the rainforest. The planet’s largest rainforest –The Amazon – lost more than 17% of its forest cover in the last century due to human activity.
Endangered Species Projects for Kids
Step 1. Find out: What is an Endangered Species?
Use this simple power point to introduce the term “endangered species.”
STEP 2: Learn about a specific endangered species
We chose 3 endangered primates, from 3 different parts of the world:
Silky Sifaka Lemur (from Madagascar)
Roloway Monkey (from Ghana)
Cotton-Top Tamarin (from Colombia).
When I used this in my class, I made groups of 4-5 students to study each endangered primate. I researched and wrote reading passages (informational texts, aligned with Common Core- available here) about each of the endangered species. First, the kids read the passage about their primate to themselves. Next, they read it aloud in their small group, taking turns reading paragraphs while going around in the circle. Each group became “experts” on their specific endangered species.
An info grid (also available here) is a visual organizer where students could fill out important information about their species. Later, during the presentations, students needed to listen to the information about the other species and fill in the remaining boxes in the info grid.
Students watched the following videos that gave more details on their endangered species. Videos are great when you can find animal scientists that are clear, and give detailed information for the kids. Since we couldn’t take a field trip to Colombia, Madagascar, or Ghana:), we especially loved being able to see the animals climbing around:
Cotton-Top Tamarin
Roloway Monkey (also called “Diana guenon”!)
Silky Sifaka
Step 3: Present the information
Each child can take a couple of minutes to present the information that they learned about their endangered species- giving features about their habitat, food, characteristics, unique behaviors, their location (use a map!), and the biggest threat to their survival. After reading and watching videos, the kids really do feel like experts and enjoy sharing their knowledge. The other kids should pay attention to the presentation so they can fill in their info grids with the pertinent details.
Step 4: Take Action!
Kids might feel overwhelmed that they are unable to do anything to help (at least my kids did!). A major way to help endangered animals is to spread awareness. Students can take part in this by making posters and hanging them in school hallways, the public library, or even hanging in their rooms to show their friends—sharing what they’ve learned with everyone who walks by!
My sister is the phenomenal artist that hand-drew these coloring sheets of our endangered primates for our posters.
In the Endangered Primate Unit we also have an activity that looks at the problems (the reasons or threats to the endangered species), the reason behind the problem, and then the kids come up with an action that they can do as kids to help prevent it in the future.
This is a great way learn problem solving, in a meaningful lesson:
Step 5: Endangered Species Art Project
After learning about their unique physical features, using a paper plate and the templates available here, we made these awesome endangered species masks with felt, fabric, and lots of soft feathers. Interdisciplinary units cross subjects areas and integrate a variety of skills: reading, science, art, oral presentation. I have seen that interdisciplinary lessons increase students’ success, interest, and make the unit more meaningful as it engages different intelligences across the same topic.
In the huge Endangered Primate Unit, I included additional exercises (and their answer keys) that include math, vocabulary, science, journal writing, cursive handwriting sheets, a webquest, and a geography mapping activity (most are Common Core-aligned):
- Alphabetical Order Activity with Key Science Terms
- Science Career Path Matching Game
- Endangered Species Math Word Problem Worksheet
- Estimating Fun! Math Worksheets (Numerical and Word Problems related to endangered species)
- Endangered Species/Environmental Journal Prompts Printable
- What Makes a Primate? Handwriting Sheets
- Endangered Animal WebQuest
- Mapping Endangered Primates Geography Activity
Endangered Species: Three Primates
Check out all of our Common Core aligned activities about three endangered primates that can be used to introduce endangered species in a classroom or home setting. All materials can be found at the Kid World Citizen store at Teachers Pay Teachers! A wide range of activities incorporate math, science, balanced literacy, and art. Go now >
Additional Resources for Endangered Species Projects
This endangered species animal list, with detailed information and photographs about locations, habitats, food, size, threats, and more. At Kids Planet, there are also fact sheets on over 50 animals.
A thorough list of endangered species is maintained by the WWF (World Wildlife Fund). It is astounding to read the actual numbers of animals left in the world of each species:
- 30 Amur Leopards
- Less than 35 Javan Rhinos
- South China Tigers are believed to be extinct in the wild
Read the Top 20 Countries with the Most Endangered Species. Led by Ecuador, the US, and Malaysia, this infographic is easy for kids to read and inspired my kids to find out more.
Free Endangered Species Coloring Book from EPA (click “get a copy”)
Free Endangered Species App from WWF
Possible Extension Activities
After the activities above, students can choose an endangered species they would like to learn more about.
1) Have students create a newspaper article about the endangered species of their choice. Include the following:
- Explain why the species is in trouble
- Describe it’s habitat, food sources, and predators
- Write ideas of how people can help
2) Have students think of 20 key words related to their endangered species, including adjectives, nouns, and verbs. Using these words on Tagxedo Word Cloud Generator, students can make a word cloud all about their animal. These word clouds make a class display, and can also be shared on the class blog.
Endangered Species: Three Primates
Check out all of our Common Core aligned activities about three endangered primates that can be used to introduce endangered species in a classroom or home setting. All materials can be found at the Kid World Citizen store at Teachers Pay Teachers! A wide range of activities incorporate math, science, balanced literacy, and art. Go now >
If you’d like to see more activities for kids who love animals, check out the wonderful series from the Kid Blogger Network: “Children Loving Animals” for World Animal Day, October 3rd.
Wow, this is such an important contribution to the World Animal Day event of us kids bloggers. I enjoyed very much reading you super interesting post Becky! Thank you for your participation and I hope we can change the world a little bit 🙂