• Review the Outdoor Classroom Rules with students before going outside.

1. Have students draw a picture of a bird, a tree and themselves in the first column.
2. Discuss whether or not the bird, the tree and the students need food, water, air, sunlight, and/or shelter to survive.
3. Use the AWF’s Ecosystem Investigation Webpage: Songbirds and Their Habitat as you discuss the basic needs of birds and what they may use as their sources for food, water, air, sunlight and shelter.
4. Next discuss what the tree and the students may use as their sources for food, water, air, sunlight, and shelter/space (highlighting the sources included on the activity page).

5. Have students look around your outdoor classroom for the habitat resources that these living things (birds & trees) need to survive.
6. Next have them look around your outdoor classroom for the resources that the students need to survive.
7. As they find each resource in their outdoor classroom, they should put a circle around it. If a resource was not found, then they should not circle it.

8. Afterward, review which resources the students were able to find that meet the basic needs of a bird and a tree.
9. Review the resources that they found to meed the students’ basic needs.
10. Discuss how ALL living things (animals & plants) have the same basic needs for food, water, air, sunlight and shelter/space.

• Use the AWF’s Wonders of Wildlife Webpage for the Northern Cardinal to review the basic habitat needs of a specific bird species that you may see in your schoolyard habitat.

1. Have students draw a picture of an ant, a plant (or flower), and themselves in the first column.
2. Discuss whether or not an ant, a plant, and the students need food, water, air, sunlight, and/or shelter to survive.
3. Use the AWF’s Wonders of Wildlife Webpage for the Little Black Ant as you discuss its basic needs and what it may use as its sources for food, water, air, sunlight and shelter.
4. Discuss what the plants may use as their sources for food, water, air, sunlight, and shelter/space (highlighting the sources included on the activity page).
5. Next discuss what the students may use as their sources for food, water, air, sunlight and/or shelter (highlighting the sources included in the activity page).

Outdoor Discovery:

6. Have students look around your outdoor classroom for the habitat resources that ants and plants need to survive.
7. Next have them look around your outdoor classroom for the resources that the students need to survive.
8. As they find each resource in their outdoor classroom, they should put a circle around it. If a resource was not found, they should not put a circle around it.

Indoor Discussion:

• ​​​​​Afterward, review which resources the students were able to find that meet the basic needs of an ant and a plant.
• Review the resources that they found to meet the students’ needs.
• Discuss how ALL living things (animals & plants) have the same basic needs for food, water, air, sunlight and shelter/space.

Optional Extension:

• Use one of the AWF’s Wonders of Wildlife Webpages to review the basic habitat needs of a wildlife species that the students would like to see. Discuss how you can improve your school’s wildife habitat to meet the needs of this wildlife species to attract it to your outdoor classroom.