Why Is Biodiversity So Important?

Videos

Grades6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12Biology

Scientist Reviewed

Provided by The Nature Conservancy

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What it is

This beautifully animated video shows the many ways that nature and biodiversity are vital to continuing life on Earth and how species extinctions and habitat destruction are jeopardizing our future.

Teaching tips

Positives

This video is brief but it makes the case for nature-based solutions to protect biodiversity and wild habitat in order to protect our future on Earth.
The animations in this video are beautiful and engaging.

Prerequisites

If students are unaware of the extinction crisis currently underway, this PBS video, TEDx talk, ecosystem overview video, and article may help introduce the topic.

Differentiation & Implementation

This video can be used in an ethics, social studies, or civics class to discuss if nature, wild spaces, oceans, and other species have the right to exist or if global protections should be enacted to protect interconnected ecosystems.
This is a great introduction to lessons about ecosystems, nutrient cycling, and biodiversity.
Other similar resources include this course about the Anthropocene, this video, this lesson, and this Wonder of Science video.

From the scientist review

This video explores the importance of ecosystem management and restoration, an approach that supports sustainable livelihoods, forests, ecosystems, human lives, biodiversity, conservation, and human health. This is recommended for teaching.

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At a glance

Grades: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
Subjects: Biology
Format: YouTube Video
Language: English
Location: Earth
Provider: The Nature Conservancy
Authors: The Nature Conservancy
Published: April 27, 2021
Last updated: July 16, 2026
: Reviewed by our climate scientists How we review

Standards alignment · D2.Geo.6.9-12 + 6 more

Core

College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards

D2.Geo.6.9-12Evaluate the impact of human settlement activities on the environmental and cultural characteristics of specific places and regions.

Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.3Evaluate a speaker's point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric, assessing the stance, premises, links among ideas, word choice, points of emphasis, and tone used.

Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)

MS-LS2-5.Evaluate competing design solutions for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services.
MS-ESS3-4.Construct an argument supported by evidence for how increases in human population and per-capita consumption of natural resources impact Earth's systems.
HS-LS2-6.Evaluate the claims, evidence, and reasoning that the complex interactions in ecosystems maintain relatively consistent numbers and types of organisms in stable conditions, but changing conditions may result in a new ecosystem.
HS-ESS3-3.Create a computational simulation to illustrate the relationships among management of natural resources, the sustainability of human populations, and biodiversity.
MS-LS4-D.Changes in biodiversity can influence humans’ resources, such as food, energy, and medicines, as well as ecosystem services that humans rely on— for example, water purification and recycling. (secondary to MS-LS2-5)

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