Virtual Webinar Series

The Nature of Teaching Extension program includes formal standards-based curricula centered around getting youth outside. Each program area, Food Waste, Health & Wellness, and Wildlife, provides standards-based, classroom-ready, lesson plans with free pdf downloads. Check out all the fun activities that are built into each curriculum. With the Virtual Webinar Series you have the opportunity to receive a certificate of completion.

Whether you are a teacher, natural resource leader or a 4-H leader you have the opportunity to use the prepared curriculum with fun activities while teaching K-12 youth about natural resources, conservation, and the environment.

Webinar Topics and Videos

Mental & Physical Benefits of Connecting With Nature Webinar In this webinar, Rod Williams, a professor and extension wildlife specialist with Purdue University Extension, and Molly Hunt, a health and human science educator with Purdue University Extension, will discuss the mental and physical benefits of engaging our youth in nature.

Benefits of Connecting With Nature Webinar, FNR-539-W:This Nature of Teaching lesson plan teaches students the relationship between outdoor experiences and mental health. This plan contains 4 lessons geared towards elementary age youth.

Environmental Effects of Food Waste: In this webinar, Rod Williams, professor and extension wildlife specialist with Purdue University Extension, and Rebecca Koetz, urban Agricultural extension educator and co-author of many educational materials that are associated with food waste, will discuss numerous aspects of food waste and how it affects our wildlife, our water, and the environment.

FNR-557 What a Waste of Food! Lesson 1: Food waste is a major issue in developed countries. This unit is designed to teach students about food waste and ways they can help reduce it. This is the first lesson out of the three lesson plans that will teach students how to reduce food waste by learning more about proper food storage, best-by dates, and ugly foods. It also contains a stand-alone lesson on food packaging and composting.

FNR-535 What a Waste of Food! Lesson 2: Food waste is a major issue in developed countries. This unit is designed to teach students about food waste and ways they can help reduce it. This is the second lesson out of the three lesson plans that will teach students how to reduce food waste by learning more about proper food storage, best-by dates, and ugly foods. It also contains a stand-alone lesson on food packaging and composting.

FNR-535 What a Waste of Food! Lesson 3: Food waste is a major issue in developed countries. This unit is designed to teach students about food waste and ways they can help reduce it. This is the final lesson out of the three lesson plans that will teach students how to reduce food waste by learning more about proper food storage, best-by dates, and ugly foods. It also contains a stand-alone lesson on food packaging and composting.

Food Waste and Natural Resources Webinar, FNR-558-W: This helpful video goes through the unit and highlights the resources required to produce food and the food wasted along each step of the food production system. It contains two lessons: Producers, Consumers, and Natural Resources; and Food Waste from Farm to Fork, along with all necessary overviews, notes, and resources.

Food Waste and the Environment Webinar, FNR-576-W: This unit of three lessons highlights the effects of food waste on water quality, climate change, and wildlife. In addition to a lesson overview and rundown of teacher materials, the unit includes three lessons: "Food Waste and Water," "Food Waste and Climate Change", and "Food Waste and Wildlife". All necessary components for interactive, hands-on activities are included, along with Next Generation Science Standards and/or Core Standards met by these lesson plans.

Food Waste Solutions Webinar, FNR-574-W: This video shares a unit with two lessons that will teach students reasons and solutions for food waste at school and home. In addition to a lesson overview and rundown of teacher materials, the unit includes two lessons: ''Food Waste Solutions for School" and "Food Waste Solutions for Home." All necessary components for interactive, hands-on activities are included, along with Next Generation Science Standards and/or Core Standards met by these lesson plans

Adaptations For Aquatic Amphibians Webinar: Understanding adaptations for aquatic amphibians can help humans learn more about healthy ecosystems. This video will walk you through this educational unit, students will be able to explain how amphibian adaptations benefit survival, describe the importance of Eastern Hellbender adaptations, and identify impacts that humans have on aquatic amphibians.

Animal Diversity and Tracking Part 1: Animal tracks are an easy and fun way to identify which mammals and other wildlife can be found on your school property. Bob Cordes, wildlife biologists with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, shares how he uses snow-tracking to determine where Canada lynx are found within the state.

Unit 1 - Animal Diversity and Tracking Part 3: Animal tracks are an easy and fun way to identify which mammals and other wildlife can be found on your school property. Tacks can also be used as a way of telling a story about the animal’s life and its adaptations to its environment. Rod Williams, professor and extension wildlife specialist, shares how easy and fun indoor track casting and outdoor track casting can be with your students.

Unit 1 - Animal Diversity and Tracking Part 2:This Natural of Teaching unit teaches mammal diversity through track identification.

Connecting Youth to Wildlife: Welcome to the Nature of Teaching Professional Development Webinar Series. This webinar series Rod Williams, a professor and extension wildlife specialist with Purdue University Extension, and Jarred Brooke, Extension Wildlife Specialist & co-author of Purdue University Extension youth resources, will discuss key concepts and ways to connect our youth to wildlife.

Disease Ecology Part 1: This webinar series Rod Williams, a professor and extension wildlife specialist with Purdue University Extension, and Dr. Jason Hoverman, an Associate Professor at Purdue and co-author of the Unit on Disease Ecology, will discuss the principals of disease ecology and the role of parasites in natural ecosystems.

Healthy Water, Happy Home: Water Quality, Aquatic Habitat, & Indicator Species Webinar : Water is a vital natural resource. We need clean water for drinking, swimming, irrigating crops, and sustaining healthy fish and wildlife populations. These Nature of Teaching lesson plans help learners understand how they can improve water quality and create suitable habitat for indicator species like eastern hellbenders.

Hellbenders Rock Webinar: This curriculum plan teaches students about the endangered eastern hellbender and the importance of conserving it. The hellbender is North America's largest salamander, growing up to 2 feet long. It is a fully aquatic salamander that spends its whole life swimming along the bottom of clean, fast-flowing, freshwater rivers and streams. After working through this lesson, students will be able to identify the eastern hellbender, describe the life stages of the eastern hellbender, explain the eastern hellbender's relationship to clean water, and list ways to conserve the eastern hellbender.

Reptiles Amphibians and the Scientific Method Webinar: This teaching unit in the Nature of Teaching series includes three lessons. After finishing these lessons, students will be able to: identify the differences and similarities between amphibians and reptiles, predict how temperatures affect cold-blooded animals, understand the importance of thermoregulation, and understand how amphibians and reptiles utilize objects in their environment to thermoregulate.

Resourceful Animal Relationships and Coloration Exploration Webinar: Resourceful Animal Relationships lesson in the Nature of Teaching unit series will teach third- through fifth-grade students about different kinds of organism interactions and how those interactions affect the ways in which organisms gain or lose resources. It meets several grade-appropriate Next Generation Science Standards, English/Language Arts Standards, and Math Standards.

The Great Clearcut Controversy Webinar: In this webinar, 3 lessons for students will be taught regarding clearcut timber harvesting. Students will learn investigate how bird communities and individual forest animals respond to a clearcut timber harvest. In this investigation, students: use scientific inquiry to gain knowledge and answer questions; apply that knowledge to the engineering design process; and design a viable management solution given the constraints and tradeoffs they discover.

The Scientific Process of Conservation Biology Webinar: Conservation biology is considered by some to be a "crisis discipline." Decisions within the field must often be made quickly, sometimes without enough time to gather all of the data one would ideally have, and they can decide the fate of a species. This Nature of Teaching video and unit introduces students to the field of conservation biology and the process of conserving a species. It includes 4 lessons and 4 case studies as well as a teacher information section and list of sources.

Unit 2- Mammal Food Webs Webinar: This Nature of Teaching unit describes how living organisms are interconnected within the environment through food webs.

Unit 5-Ashes to Ashes: Exploring Ecosystem Succession & Disturbance Webinar: This Nature of Teaching Unit contains two lessons and classroom activities for teachers of students kindergarten through grade five. These lessons teach students to describe how an ecosystem is constantly changing and what causes the changes.

Trees of the Midwest Webinar: This videos shares how this lesson can teach students all about trees, including the life cycle of a tree, the function of different parts of a tree, and the use for and value of different wood products.

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