This animated poem, read by Jane Goodall, shows what happened when people slowed down during the Covid-19 pandemic and began to notice nature.
Students will learn that people have damaged the environment and that people can work together to rebuild it.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This video will remind students that humans are responsible for taking care of the natural world.
The gentle animation style pairs well with Jane Goodall's calming voice.
Additional Prerequisites
Students should be familiar with the following terms: tenacious, prevail, rebirth, and renewed.
Differentiation
English language arts classes could annotate the poem, noting the rhyme scheme, meter, figurative language, and literary devices.
Younger students could draw before and after pictures to show what changed from the beginning of the poem to the end.
Writing classes could write personal reflections about a natural place that feels peaceful. Students could incorporate sensory images to help the reader understand what it feels like to be there.
Other resources on this topic include this animated video on the importance of biodiversity, this video that takes students to a silent rainforest in Washington, and this interactive map that shows the restoration potential of land in different parts of the world.
Scientist Notes
This poem narrates the importance of adopting collective ideas such as nature-based solutions, clean energy, and other climate solutions to rebuild the planet. This is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Speaking & Listening (K-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.6.2 Interpret information presented in diverse media and formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) and explain how it contributes to a topic, text, or issue under study.
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
K-ESS3-1 Use a model to represent the relationship between the needs of different plants or animals (including humans) and the places they live.
K-ESS3-3 Communicate solutions that will reduce the impact of humans on the land, water, air, and/or other living things in the local environment.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 4: Taking Informed Action
D4.7.3-5 Explain different strategies and approaches students and others could take in working alone and together to address local, regional, and global problems, and predict possible results of their actions.
