Rewilding: Habitats and Humans

# REWILDING: HABITATS AND HUMANS Nature’s Recovery from the Human Footprint **Learning Age:** 7 - 14 **Subject Links**: Biology, Life Science, Animal Biology, Natural Science **Learning Objectives** *1. Understand the importance of the role played by large mammals in a food chain*{.info} *2. Make observations about the survival status of a range of species and the impact of human activities on their ecosystems*{.info} *3. Outline the broad stages involved in a rewilding program*{.info} **Playlist Overview** This collection of short 360° videos is designed to help your students learn about rewilding, a conservation strategy aimed at minimizing human impact on ecosystems, increasing biodiversity and restoring important food chains. Encourage your students to explore these immersive videos, bringing them into the beauty of European wildlife and allowing them to feel the fragility of the story’s message through firsthand experience. Using these VR activities to enhance your core lessons, your students can meet a whole host of European wildlife, recognize the importance of keystone species in an ecosystem, and discover the great benefits of rewilding initiatives. **Keywords:** Rewilding, animals, nature, conservation, ecology, environment, ecosystems, habitats, biodiversity, species, food chain, wildlife, predator, prey, producer, consumer, carnivore, herbivore, mammals, agriculture, climate change **VR Resources:** These resources are all 360° videos and vary in duration. - **Wild Fact: Rewilding** *(3m 54s)* - **Movie: Rewilding Europe** *(13m 44s)* **Please note, videos from our WildWorld subscription are high quality and some files may be large. Please allow ample time to download.** *Tip: While in the headset, encourage your students to look up and all around them!* Optional Additional Materials: - **Movie Booklet: Rewilding Europe** - **Animal ID: Rewilding** **Before Your Experience** Before discovering rewilding and the pressures facing wildlife in this VR video, check your students’ prior knowledge of food chains and conservation. The following questions can be discussed in a group or as an individual task. Ask your students: - What is a food chain? - Can you name some different components in food chains? - What do you know about rewilding and its goals? **Suggested Activities** Here are some activity ideas to get you started using these VR resources in your classroom. These differentiated activities can be adapted for different learning ages and abilities. # Core Knowledge{.objective .objective1} This activity aims to show students that a core component of rewilding is understanding that the equilibrium between predators and prey is essential for a healthy, stable ecosystem. To get started, recommend to students that they listen very carefully to the story about the animals that lived in Yellowstone National Park, whilst watching this short video in their ClassVR headset: - **Wild Fact: Rewilding** Afterward, students should be prompted to describe what rewilding means in their own words, to assess how far they understood the idea from the video. Guide them with the following questions: - What was the problem facing Yellowstone National Park? - What happened when the wolves were reintroduced? Students should then draw a simple food chain diagram to represent the result of the rewilding program in Yellowstone Park. It should include wolves, deer and plants. They should then, using a + or – sign, show how the increase in predators affected the other elements within the food chain. For example, 14 wolves were introduced, so next to the wolves they should put a plus sign. *Tip: To assist students with this activity, teachers may refer to or provide the **Animal ID: Rewilding** sheet.* # Demonstrating Understanding{.objective .objective2} In this activity, your students can develop awareness of rewilding as a multistep process – an action that recognizes the human footprint on our ecosystems and seeks to address the imbalance and allow nature to heal itself. Ask students to watch the **Movie: Rewilding Europe**. Following their experience, they should draw a “Seven Steps to Rewilding” staircase in their workbooks. Ask students to put the following steps in the correct order so that their diagram depicts the full journey to rewilding an ecosystem: 1. Nature Starting to Heal 2. Human Impact on Nature 3. Wildlife Thriving 4. Damaged Habitats 5. Returning Animal Species 6. Loss of Wildlife 7. Restoring the Land *Tip: The correct order is 2, 4, 6, 7, 5, 1.* Encourage students to decorate their staircase with small drawings or icons that represent the labels. Alternatively, they can sketch how they imagine a damaged habitat at the bottom of the steps and a thriving habitat filled with flora and fauna at the top. *Tip: Students can draw on the information in the video and their own knowledge. For example, they may wish to show rising temperatures, falling trees, or guns to represent climate change, deforestation and hunting respectively.* # Extended Learning{.objective .objective3} In this activity, students can create a “Species Profile Sheet” to show their understanding of the rewilding process. The aim is to highlight how animals and plants all have varied, important roles to play in supporting an ecosystem rich with biodiversity. Your students should watch the **Movie: Rewilding Europe** and pay close attention to the role of each animal in the process of rewilding. Then, ask your students to choose three of the species featured in the video to create a profile about. On a sheet of paper or card, have them divide the page into three sections. Each section of the page should include a drawing of their chosen species, and some annotations underneath with four short observations in the following categories: Role in Ecosystem, Adaptations, Human Impact on Species, Conservation Efforts. *Tip: To assist students with this activity, teachers may refer to or provide the **Movie Booklet: Rewilding Europe.*** **Cross-Curricular Links** **Language Arts/English Language** Ask students to write a passage of persuasive prose to urge the public to consider rewilding a local area, like a disused parking lot or local outdoor space . They should include suggestions of small things citizens could do, like implementing a no cutting down trees policy or simply planting a window box to allow wildlife to flourish. **Health Education/Psychology** Go on a learning walk with students to observe wildlife and discuss the positive effects derived from natural spaces. Ask students to write some notes about the wildlife they encounter and describe how their physical and mental well-being could benefit. # Activity Guide **Download the Activity Guide** [](https://avnfs.com/ObT57K_ybqyyjwJuBiJ7kwu_skpKUWddt0qi691wjHg?size=3625683&type=application%2Fpdf&name=Rewilding+-+Habitats+and+Humans-Wildworld+Activity+Sheet.pdf)