Teaching Biodiversity

The term biodiversity is short for “biological diversity.” It stays for the huge variety of life on Earth—the plants, animals, habitats, and human cultures that populate the planet. The interconnections amongst the species support and link these living things in a fragile web of life.

Only in the past few decades people have begun to realize the amazing abundance and variety of life and have begun to understand the interdependent relationships shared by all living things. We are also beginning to realize that a significant loss of biodiversity could seriously undermine our long-term economic, intellectual, physical and emotional wellbeing. Citizens are needed, who have the skills and confidence to rise to the challenge of protecting biodiversity and who feel empowered to do so. Education is one of the best tools for achieving this goal. Thus, the teaching of biodiversity at schools has begun to be an important topic of the science curricula.

The best way to understand biodiversity is by experiencing biodiversity. A wonderful way to do so is by identifying living organisms of a certain species, genera, family, etc. or of a certain location. It is to experience their similarities as well as their dissimilarities. KeyToNature wants to promote it!