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Educator Resources

The museum provides over 50 resources for you to download and use at no charge. Many are designed for use in the museum, but we have a plethora of activities that are perfect for the classroom. Designed by museum staff, experts, and teacher candidates, these resources will give you new and fun ways of incorporating biodiversity into the classroom. Here are a few complete lesson plans, including worksheets and materials lists:

Grades K-3: Explore biodiversity through the five senses (PDF). This package includes a combination of museum and in-class activities, though you can adapt the museum activities for your schoolyard, or even a nature documentary.
Grades 4-9: Create your own herbarium for your classroom. Learn about plant pressing ethics and techniques (PDF) Explore the herbarium database to see how scientists keep plant specimens in the museum! You might use this as a way to start a nature table (PDF).
Grades 10+: Become speciation sleuths in this comprehensive lesson package, exploring speciation, evolution, hybridization and more (PDF). Included is a final project (PDF), example (PDF), and grading criteria (PDF). This is a great way for students to explore their area of interest, and come together to share their newfound knowledge.
All grades: If you are interested in exploring real museum specimens, learn more about our Beaty Boxes.

Our school programs support your lesson plans

Our programs are designed around the BC Curriculum to provide educational opportunities for Science and Arts programs from Kindergarden to High School and beyond. Visit our website for programs designed for Elementary, Seconday and Post-Secondary classes.

Have suggestions for our website? Please let us know! If there's something that you think is in the wrong place on our website or if you can't find the content you're looking for, please email beaty.marketing@ubc.ca with your feedback.

About the Museum

The Beaty Biodiversity Museum strives to inspire an understanding of biodiversity, its origins, and importance to humans through collections-based research, education and outreach. As Vancouver’s natural history museum, we work to promote a greater sense of collective responsibility for the biodiversity of British Columbia, Canada, and the world. The unique combination of world-class research, paired with beautiful, compelling exhibits, strives to make the research conducted at UBC more accessible to the public.

Explore the university’s spectacular biological collections, with 20,000 square feet of exhibits showcasing over 500 permanent exhibits. Among our two million treasured specimens are a 26-metre-long blue whale skeleton suspended in the atrium, the third-largest fish collection in Canada, and myriad fossils, shells, insects, fungi, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and plants from around BC and across the world.

2212 Main Mall University of British Columbia | Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4 CA