Take your students on a climb through the mountain ecosystem! From the towering Himalayas to the snowy Rockies, mountain ecosystems change as you climb, starting with green forests down low and ending with bare, windswept summits at the top.
✨ Perfect for grades 3–8, here’s what you need to bring ecosystems to life:
- Iconic BBC Videos: Share the clips on this page to introduce the location, plants, animals, and climate of the mountains. (Don't miss the grizzlies and snow leopards!) Brought to you by world-class BBC programs like Planet Earth.
- Free Printable: Use the Mountain Brochure Template to help students pull it all together in an ecosystem report with facts they’ve learned (and a little extra research).
It’s everything you need to make ecosystems easy to teach and truly memorable for your students.
In Demoiselle Cranes: Conquering Everest, narrator Sir David Attenborough explains how birds struggle to cross the Himalayas on their seasonal migration. Cheer on the weak and tired cranes as they face turbulence and storms at such a high altitude. This video is excerpted from BBC's Planet Earth, a breathtaking documentary series that highlights the natural wonders of our planet.
Mountains push life to its limits — thin air, brutal cold, steep terrain. From the Himalayas to the Rockies, the plants and animals that survive here have had to adapt in some pretty extreme ways.
After watching mountain ecosystem videos, have students dig deeper with their own research and build a brochure covering:
- Location of the ecosystem on a world map
- Adjectives that describe the ecosystem
- Three animals that live there
- Three plants that grow there
- The climate
- Why the ecosystem matters
- Their favorite fun facts
Students summarize in their own words, which means they're practicing a real skill: pulling information from multiple sources and deciding what's worth keeping.
Take your students on a climb through the mountain ecosystem! From the towering Himalayas to the snowy Rockies, mountain ecosystems change as you climb, starting with green forests down low and ending with bare, windswept summits at the top.
✨ Perfect for grades 3–8, here’s what you need to bring ecosystems to life:
- Iconic BBC Videos: Share the clips on this page to introduce the location, plants, animals, and climate of the mountains. (Don't miss the grizzlies and snow leopards!) Brought to you by world-class BBC programs like Planet Earth.
- Free Printable: Use the Mountain Brochure Template to help students pull it all together in an ecosystem report with facts they’ve learned (and a little extra research).
It’s everything you need to make ecosystems easy to teach and truly memorable for your students.
In Demoiselle Cranes: Conquering Everest, narrator Sir David Attenborough explains how birds struggle to cross the Himalayas on their seasonal migration. Cheer on the weak and tired cranes as they face turbulence and storms at such a high altitude. This video is excerpted from BBC's Planet Earth, a breathtaking documentary series that highlights the natural wonders of our planet.
Mountains push life to its limits — thin air, brutal cold, steep terrain. From the Himalayas to the Rockies, the plants and animals that survive here have had to adapt in some pretty extreme ways.
After watching mountain ecosystem videos, have students dig deeper with their own research and build a brochure covering:
- Location of the ecosystem on a world map
- Adjectives that describe the ecosystem
- Three animals that live there
- Three plants that grow there
- The climate
- Why the ecosystem matters
- Their favorite fun facts
Students summarize in their own words, which means they're practicing a real skill: pulling information from multiple sources and deciding what's worth keeping.