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Provided by: Tinkercast |Published on: September 9, 2025
Podcasts
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Synopsis
This resource from Tinkercast features a "Wow in the World" podcast episode where students will learn about the importance of parasites in the ecosystem and how climate change may affect them.
The resource also includes related materials, such as a place for students to record their questions, an opportunity to design an engineering challenge, and a guided experiment to understand how global warming works.
Students will love the wild characters in this episode, especially goofy Dennis and sassy Grandma G-Force!
This episode does an excellent job of taking a scientific study and explaining it in kid-friendly terms, while remaining engaging and entertaining.
Prerequisites
Before listening, teachers may want to define the term parasites. Teachers may also want to show students examples of climate marches to provide additional context.
Differentiation & Implementation
For the class worksheets and materials, young students may benefit from having printed versions.
To help students understand the importance of keeping other species from becoming too populous, teachers can introduce the concept of biodiversity and ask students to consider what could happen if too much of one species exists.
While completing the guided experiment, teachers may want to explain that the plastic wrap or t-shirt represents the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Though it is recommended in the materials to listen to the episode before completing the guided experiment, teachers may want to do the experiment first instead, pairing it with a lesson on or explanation of global warming so students understand what the episode is referring to as they discuss its impacts on parasites. This video provides a helpful, kid-friendly explanation.
Teachers can connect this resource to UN Sustainable Development Goal 15, Life on Land. If students are unfamiliar with the SDGs, teachers can find resources in this guide to introduce them to students.
Scientist Notes
Teaching Tips
Standards
Resource Type and Format
Related Teaching Resources
All resources can be used for your educational purposes with proper attribution to the content provider.
