Biodiversity Workshop

To get the most out of the Biodiversity Workshop on ecosystems at the Zoo, we suggest studying the following aspects at school before the visit:

To understand the students’ interests and increase motivation about the animals:

• Look up the definition of biodiversity in an encyclopaedia and news clippings that employ this concept. Compare the meanings attributed in one case and another.
• Collect the questions that arise and that you will work on later.
• Collect photographs, magazine and press articles, worksheets, videos, CDS, other electronic supports and other materials about biodiversity.
• Make a compilation of the causes that make the planet’s biodiversity decrease.
• Outline hypotheses about the effects of the loss of biodiversity.

To observe animals:

• Take an outing to observe animals, both vertebrates and invertebrates, to find traces, paw prints, dens, burrows, faeces, listen to the song of different birds, discover the presence of amphibians and reptiles, etc., so that students can realise the biodiversity existing in our natural environment. Outline hypotheses about the variation of biodiversity in relation to the future and the past.
• Track a 5-metre route through a public park and through a primary forest, taking notes on the different species found and comparing the biodiversity in one place and the other.

As specific objectives:

• Introduce the concept of taxonomic category: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species.
• Understand zoos’ contribution to maintaining biodiversity.
• Discover the main classes of vertebrates.
• Realise the existence of equilibrium within each ecosystem.
• Understand the importance of maintaining biodiversity and the causes and effects of the loss of biodiversity.