KS3 ~ Year 8 ~ Extinction

This lesson is designed for the KS3 Year 8 Science course, specifically the B2 1.3 unit on Adaptation & Inheritance.

For more lessons designed for KS3 and KS4 please visit my shop at: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/SWiftScience.

The lesson begins with a video on extinction, including an extra challenge task for pupils to come up with a definition of extinction. Whilst students are watching the video they will have a set of questions to answer, once this task has been completed students will self-assess their work using the mark scheme provided.

Students will now be asked to ‘Think > Pair > Share’ their ideas about what causes extinction to occur within a species. Students will be given a few minutes to talk about this amongst themselves, before feeding back to the class. The answers will then be revealed using the PowerPoint presentation, students can mark and check their work against this mark scheme.

Students will now be given cards of information on the 5 main causes of extinction: habitat destruction, introduction of new species, hunting & fishing, environmental changes & new diseases. Students should summarise this information in their books, writing a few sentences for each cause.

In groups, students will be given cards of information on different organisms and the reasons why they are being pushed to extinction. Using this information students will need to complete a table of information to include 5 different organisms which are now extinct.

Lastly, students will consider ways in which scientists are trying to prevent extinction. Each student will be given some information about the role of a gene bank, examples include: pollen banks, seed banks, cryobank & a tissue bank. They will then need to move around the classroom, sharing information with each to complete a summary table. This task can the be self-assessed using the mark scheme provided in the PowerPoint.

The plenary task requires students to pretend you are a conservationist working for a charity that is trying to stop the extinction of one of the organisms you studied earlier in the lesson. Write a twitter message to your followers to raise awareness of the issues that are critically affecting this organism.

All resources are included at the end of the presentation. Thanks for looking, if you have any questions please let me know in the comments section and any feedback would be appreciated :)