These two biodiversity exercises will help students become familiar with the methods of scientific research. The printable seven-page PDF guide includes Studying Biodiversity in Arizona, where students review a paper written by one of the museum's Young Naturalist Award winners and deconstruct her scientific investigation and Biodiversity in Our Own Backyards,where students use a Biodiversity Counts activity (included in the guide) to investigate the interaction of living things near where they live.

This activity is designed to be used with the online text and graphics that are part of the Transformation of the Biosphere Wall in the Hall of Biodiversity. The one-page printable PDF includes two student activities: a general investigation of a threat to the world's biodiversity and a specific investigation of the concrete way in which one of these threats has affected the U.S. environment.

This printable PDF map of the museum's Hall of Biodiversity identifies the eight key stops to hit during your visit, including a photograph of each.

This treasure-hunt activity is designed to be completed during a trip to the museum's Hall of Biodiversity. The printable one-page PDF challenges students to find 31 animals and plants in the Hall's diorama. Photographs of 21 of these specimens are included.

The museum's Milstein Family Hall of Ocean Life explores the diverse, complex web of life supported by the ocean and the vital inter-relationships between human and aquatic systems. This insert to the hall guide is designed to help you maximize your trip to the museum.

This series of activities provides a sample of possibilities for using the Digital Universe with your students. The activities were drafted in consultation with classroom teachers and museum experts, but have yet to be pilot tested in classrooms. They are an initial exploration into the educational possibilities for using the Digital Universe data set in the classroom.

In this classroom activity, young students compare their feet to the foot of a large Apatosaur. The activity opens with background information for teachers about the enormous size range of dinosaurs. After using personal references to describe the size of dinosaurs, students examine the outline of an Apatosaur footprint. Students then estimate how many of their footprints would fit inside the Apatosaur footprint and conduct an experiment to test their estimate.

This fun Web site is part of OLogy, where kids can collect virtual trading cards and create projects with them. Here, they learn about the work of Edwin Hubble and how his work contributed to the formation of the Big Bang Theory.

This OLogy activity teaches kids the many things they can do to preserve biodiversity. The printable checklist includes detailed examples in nine categories.

This article, part of Biodiversity Counts, provides insight into the important task of identifying plant specimens. The article includes a list of tools that are part of a botanist's field kit.

In this Biodiversity Counts activity, students create their own aerial insect net using common and inexpensive supplies: net fabric, a coat hanger, a wooden handle, duct tape, a sewing needle, and thread. The online activity page includes illustrated step-by-step directions and a brief introduction to the use of fabric nets.

This Biodiversity Counts illustration shows students how to make a simple killing jar to preserve arthropods for further study. As the labeled drawing shows, all that's needed is a jar with a lid, tape for reinforcement, a few drops of ethyl acetate, and a paper towel.

In this Biodiversity Counts article, students learn how to preserve their plant pressings.

In this Biodiversity Counts activity, students learn how to press and preserve plant specimens. The online page includes illustrated instructions about how to layer and maintain pressings until the specimens have dried.

In this Biodiversity Counts activity, students learn how to replicate an arthropod's natural habitat in order to create suitable guest quarters. The online page includes instructions for what to observe in an arthropod's environment, tips for converting a container, such as a soda bottle or aquarium, into a hospitable habitat with plenty of oxygen, water, hiding places, and other arthropod necessities, notes about what to feed the arthropod and where to purchase both arthropods and their food.

In this Biodiversity Counts activity, students learn how to set up a Berlese funnel and coax tiny arthropods out of their habitat for further study. The page includes a labeled illustration.

In this Biodiversity Counts activity, students learn how to set up a yellow pan trap to attract insects drawn to the color yellow. The supplies required are readily available.

In this Biodiversity Counts activity, students learn how to create and set up a pitfall trap to catch soil dwellers. The online activity page includes easy-to-follow directions for building a trap with recycled plastic containers, stones, wood/cardboard, and a bait of the students' choosing. Students let the trap sit either for a few hours or overnight to see what they have caught. To expand their investigation, students are challenged to experiment with different baits to see if they can attract different arthropods.

This online article, from Biodiversity Counts, is a general-purpose tip sheet for using a dichotomous key. The article outlines a three step process using a tree as an example.

This site assembles the information from the April 1997 American Museum of Natural History symposium on the role humans have played, and continue to play, in the extinction of species. It presents an overview of extinction, the various hypotheses that explain this irreplaceable loss, details about what happened 14,000 years ago and the ongoing role humans play in the extinction process, a bestiary with notes and illustrations about some of the mammals that have gone extinct from the Pleistocene era through the 20th century, and what can be done to prevent another extinction event.