1. ARKive School Museum What are endangered species and why are they endangered?
This PowerPoint should be used as a guide to help introduce the ARKive School Museum concept to students. You can decide which parts of the project are most appropriate for your class and age range.

2. What is an ARKive School Museum?
Explain that students are going to learn about endangered species, and then use the information they find out to help teach others about endangered species. Students will do this by using a website called ARKive, which has lots of pictures, videos and information about endangered species, and using this information students will create their own museum within the their school.
This school had an exhibit about the size of different endangered species in their museum.
We are going to use the images and information on the ARKive website to help us create our School Museum.

3. What is an endangered species?
Tiger
Hawksbill turtle
Begin the first session of the ARKive School Museum by discussing endangered species. Encourage students to brainstorm ideas to the following questions before sharing their answers. This is a great opportunity to gage students’ prior knowledge of the subject.
Question 1: Do you know what endangered species are?
Endangered species are those considered to be at risk of extinction, meaning that there are so few left of their kind that they could disappear from the planet altogether.
Question 2: Can you name any endangered species?
Answers could include - tiger, western gorilla, blue whale, giant panda, black rhinoceros.
For more examples and information about endangered species visit:
Question 3: If nothing is done to prevent or reduce threats to endangered species then they will become extinct, can you name any extinct species?
Thylacine, sabre-toothed tiger, dodo, dinosaurs, wooly mammoth
Yellow-eyed penguin
Blue whale

4. Why do species become endangered?
Habitat loss
Hunting
Pollution
Encourage students to develop the answers on their own with guidance. Below are some of the correct answers students might come up with.
Ask students if they know why species become endangered - what threatens species survival?
Guide students through the following reasons in case they are not covered by the students themselves:
- hunting/poaching (for fur, food, trade e.g. rhino horn, or because they are seen as pests)
- pollution (this can include waste, plastic or chemicals)
- collection for the pet trade (people want to keep wild animals and plants in their homes)
- habitat loss (trees are cut down to clear land for buildings or farming)
- overfishing
- invasive species
More information about threats to endangered species can be found on the ARKive Endangered species page:
Golden-crowned sifaka
Cape fox
Black bear
Can you think of any other reasons?

5. Lets look at the polar bear
We’re now going to focus our attention on one endangered species – the polar bear
Question 1: What do you already know about the polar bear?
- Here are some facts you can share with the class that they might not already know -
It is the largest land carnivore
It has very large paws which helps to spread its weight out when it walks on snow and stops it sinking into the snow.
It has non-retractable claws on its feet which dig into the snow like ice-picks.
The soles of the polar bears feet have small projections and indents which act like suction cups and help it to walk on ice without slipping.
The polar bear has large, strong limbs and huge forepaws which are used as paddles, allowing it to move in water as well as on land.
Question 2: Where does it live? Describe its habitat.
The polar bear lives in the Arctic (not the Antarctic) in northern Canada, North America, Norway, Greenland (Denmark) and parts of Russia
Polar bears live where it’s cold and there is snow and ice.
Question 3: What do you know about its life cycle? What does it eat?
Polar bears:
mainly hunt seals but also hunt species of whales and sea birds.
breed in the spring and have their cubs in their dens while they hibernate.
can live to 30 years of age.
- for more facts about the polar bear visit: maritimus
A video showing the polar bear struggling on some ice can be found here:
After showing this video you can follow up by asking the following questions,
Question 4: Do you have further ideas about where the polar bear lives?
Question 5: What is the polar bear doing in the clip?
This could be linked to a discussion on climate change (or this can be explored on another occasion).
For more information on Climate Change on ARKive:

6. Why is the polar bear endangered?
Student discussion continues about how the polar bear has become an endangered species.
Question 1: If the snow and ice are melting, what does that mean for the polar bear?
It’s losing its habitat or home. The polar bear needs ice to survive therefore its home/habitat is decreasing with the melting ice.
Question 2: In addition to melting snow, polar bears are affected by pollution. What is pollution?
Presence of something unnatural in nature that usually causes plants and animals harm. When there is pollution in the ocean, fish are affected by it too. Polar bears eat seals (ringed and bearded) and seals eat fish (among other things). So when the seals eat lots of fish that have been affected by pollution, they are affected too, and ultimately so are the polar bears – this is a process called bioaccumulation where damaging pollutants (chemicals) build up in the food chain.
Question 3: How do you think pictures help people learn about what’s happening to the polar bear?
Pictures like this help to teach people about what is happening in the world and also encourage people to try to save species like the polar bear before they are gone forever.

7. How can we share the story of the polar bear and other endangered species?
How do you learn about endangered species? Where can you go to find information about endangered species?
Watching TV, internet, reading books or magazines, visits to the zoo or aquarium, museums
Museums – use these questions to guide the conversation further
How many of you have been to a museum before?
Which museums have you been to?
Which exhibitions caught your eye and made you want to learn more?
Do you like exhibitions with hands-on activities? If yes, why do you think that is? Which type of exhibit do you think you learn more from?
Have you ever been to a Natural History Museum – one with exhibits and information about animals?
How can museums help endangered species survive?

8. What is an ARKive School Museum?
You could create masks of different endangered species to teach people about species they never knew existed!
Introduce the concept of an ASM:
Explain that the students are going to embark on an adventure to create their own museum called an ARKive School Museum at school and that by learning facts and information about an endangered species of their choice, they will become an “endangered species expert”. Explain that they will then take what they have learnt and think of ideas to create an ARKive School Museum filled with exhibits created by them. Students will decide what to make for their exhibits and actually get the chance to create the exhibits and then host an opening of the ARKive School Museum to other students, family and community.
For teachers with students age 5-9, an ARKive School Museum can be interpreted as a creative space for sharing knowledge about endangered species rather than a full on museum. Consider having students write poems, draw large posters or use ARKive to make collages. Student work can be hung around the room and each student can still ‘host’ their art exhibit to other students and family members.
These are a few examples of what some students have made for their own exhibits.
Possible activities to run/look at:
- Sizing Up Species -
- ARKive Geographic - ngTheWorldsBiodiversity
- ARKive’s fun stuff page (
Why not create a giant world map and look at where different endangered species can be found?
You could look at the size of different endangered species – how do you compare to a whale?

9. Turn a polar bear … into an exhibit!
Use the polar bear as an example of how students can turn their knowledge of an endangered species into an exhibit for their own ARKive School Museum.
For more species masks and other arts and crafts ideas from ARKive, visit the Fun Stuff page:
STEP 1.
Learn fun facts about the polar bear on ARKive and find out why it is endangered
STEP 2.
Create your own polar bear mask, using the template on ARKive
STEP 3.
Write a poem, short story or act out a skit about saving the polar bear for your ARKive School Museum.

10. Let’s look at some other endangered species from around the world
The next slide features endangered species around the world along with facts that the students might use for their own exhibits.

11. More exhibit ideas Giraffe
FACT: Giraffe’s use their long neck to eat leaves at the tops of trees.
EXHIBIT: Draw and decorate a life-sized giraffe head and neck. Place markers on the wall at different heights.
See what you can reach by yourself and what a giraffe can reach with its long neck.
Green turtle
FACT: Less than 1 out of every 1,000 turtle hatchlings survive to adulthood.
EXHIBIT: Fill a box or jar with 1,000 cotton balls and ask visitors to pull out the number of hatchlings (cotton balls) they think survive to adulthood.
Share with them the real answer - just one!
Use this slide to inspire students by going through the different species and how they can be turned into exhibits – they can then either create their own exhibits or use these ideas.
Animal eggs
FACT: Birds and reptiles lay eggs of all different colors and sizes.
EXHIBIT: Print a variety of pictures of egg-laying animals along with a picture of the eggs they lay. Ask visitors to match up which eggs match which species and why.

12. Now we are going to create our own ARKive School Museum!
What endangered species would you like to learn more about?