Venture to the frozen edges of our planet — the polar regions! From the icy Arctic, home to polar bears, to the vast white wilderness of Antarctica, where penguins rule, these ecosystems are as extreme as they are breathtaking. After watching our videos, challenge your students to become ecosystem experts by creating their own colorful report filled with fascinating facts. (They’ll need to dig deeper with extra research, too!) Inside the brochure, students will uncover and share:
- Location of the ecosystem on a world map
- Adjectives that describe the ecosystem
- Three animals that live in the ecosystem
- Three plants that grow in the ecosystem
- The climate of the ecosystem
- What makes the ecosystem important
- Their favorite fun facts
Your students will summarize the most important details in their own words while keeping it clear and easy to understand. As they choose what to include, they’ll sharpen their ability to evaluate and combine information from different sources. Best of all, they’ll show off their creativity and communication skills by designing a brochure that’s as fun to read as it is informative!
Bring your students on an icy exploration of the polar ecosystem! The Arctic and Antarctica may look frozen and empty at first glance, but they’re full of life perfectly adapted to the cold.
✨ 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 polar regions. (Don't miss the narwhals and emperor penguins!) Brought to you by world-class BBC programs like Planet Earth, Frozen Planet, and Seven Worlds, One Planet.
- Free Printable: Use the Polar 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.
Teaching ecosystems helps students see how every living thing is connected. That's why we've created our Ecosystems Collection. We cover six ecosystems (grasslands, desert, coral reef, tropical rainforest, mountain, and polar). After watching videos on each ecosystem, challenge your students to become ecosystem experts by creating their own colorful reports filled with fascinating facts. (They’ll need to dig deeper with extra research, too!) There's a brochure template for each of the six ecosystems. Inside, students will uncover and share:
- Location of the ecosystem on a world map
- Adjectives that describe the ecosystem
- Three animals that live in the ecosystem
- Three plants that grow in the ecosystem
- The climate of the ecosystem
- What makes the ecosystem important
- Their favorite fun facts
Your students will summarize the most important details in their own words while keeping it clear and easy to understand. As they choose what to include, they’ll sharpen their ability to evaluate and combine information from different sources. Best of all, they’ll show off their creativity and communication skills by designing a brochure that’s as fun to read as it is informative!
Discover the amazing animals that live in the coldest environments on Earth in this Kahoot about the polar regions. From powerful polar bears and playful seals to emperor penguins and Arctic foxes, students will explore how animals survive freezing temperatures, icy waters, and long, dark winters.
This Kahoot highlights the special adaptations that help polar animals hunt, stay warm, raise their young, and move across snow and ice. Students will also learn how different species depend on one another within polar food chains and how life continues to thrive in these extreme habitats.
Watch the related BBC videos (below), then invite your Grade 3–8 students to test their knowledge and uncover the fascinating world of polar animals.
The article "Here Are 11 Arctic Animals That Not Only Survive, But Also Thrive in the Freezing Polar Landscape" from BBC's Discover Wildlife explores how various animals have adapted to endure the Arctic's extreme conditions. From the mighty polar bear and tusked walrus to the resilient Arctic fox and long-lived Greenland shark, the piece highlights their unique physical traits and survival behaviors.
The article "Polar Bears Are Suffering From Painful Ice Blocks on Their Paws Due to Climate Change" from BBC's Discover Wildlife explains how polar bears are experiencing painful ice blocks on their paws, some as large as 12 inches in diameter. Researchers from the University of Washington found that these ice blocks are causing deep injuries, and climate change is to blame for the freeze-thaw cycles that cause the blocks.
In Churchill, Manitoba — often called the “polar bear capital of the world” — polar bears are facing a changing home. As the Arctic warms, sea ice is forming later and melting earlier. That’s a big problem, because polar bears rely on the ice like a hunting platform to catch seals.
Now, they’re stuck on land for longer periods, waiting for the ice to return. And while they wait, hunger builds. Some bears are wandering closer to towns in search of food, digging through garbage and sometimes coming into conflict with people.
Scientists say the situation is serious: polar bear populations in some areas have dropped sharply in the last generation. As the ice keeps shrinking, the challenge of sharing space between humans and polar bears is only getting harder.
In What Happens When Polar Bears Wake Up Hungry?, narrator Sir David Attenborough explains that a mother polar bear must hunt seals before the spring ice melts. However, a blizzard threatens her two young cubs, and the sea ice is a dangerous place for them. This video is excerpted from BBC's Planet Earth, a breathtaking documentary series that highlights the natural wonders of our planet.
In Watch Polar Bears After Hibernation, narrator Sir David Attenborough explains how a mother polar bear and her cub hunt after waking up from hibernation. Learn how a mother polar bear tries to find a seal under the ice. Watch a polar bear cub learn and play. This video is excerpted from BBC’s Blue Planet, a definitive documentary series diving into the mysterious depths of the sea to discover the natural history of the world’s oceans and the rarely seen marine life that reside there.
Step into the frozen world of the Arctic and meet one of the planet’s most powerful, and vulnerable, predators: the polar bear. This BBC video playlist dives into the daily life of these majestic animals, from caring for playful cubs to navigating treacherous ice in search of food.
Through stunning footage and expert narration, learners will explore how polar bears adapt to extreme cold, hunt for seals, and survive in one of Earth’s harshest environments. Along the way, they’ll also discover how climate change is threatening the polar bear’s icy home, and why protecting it matters.
In How Walruses and Polar Bears Survive in the Arctic, narrator Sir David Attenborough shows walruses gathered on low-lying islands, where they nurse their young after giving birth on sea ice. Meanwhile, a male polar bear, weakened after seven days at sea and having lost half his weight over the summer, swims ashore in search of food. However, the massive walruses, the largest seals in the world with tusks over 3 feet (1 meter) long, prove to be a tough challenge. This video is excerpted from BBC’s Planet Earth, a breathtaking documentary series that highlights the natural wonders of our planet.
Venture to the frozen edges of our planet — the polar regions! From the icy Arctic, home to polar bears, to the vast white wilderness of Antarctica, where penguins rule, these ecosystems are as extreme as they are breathtaking. After watching our videos, challenge your students to become ecosystem experts by creating their own colorful report filled with fascinating facts. (They’ll need to dig deeper with extra research, too!) Inside the brochure, students will uncover and share:
- Location of the ecosystem on a world map
- Adjectives that describe the ecosystem
- Three animals that live in the ecosystem
- Three plants that grow in the ecosystem
- The climate of the ecosystem
- What makes the ecosystem important
- Their favorite fun facts
Your students will summarize the most important details in their own words while keeping it clear and easy to understand. As they choose what to include, they’ll sharpen their ability to evaluate and combine information from different sources. Best of all, they’ll show off their creativity and communication skills by designing a brochure that’s as fun to read as it is informative!
Bring your students on an icy exploration of the polar ecosystem! The Arctic and Antarctica may look frozen and empty at first glance, but they’re full of life perfectly adapted to the cold.
✨ 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 polar regions. (Don't miss the narwhals and emperor penguins!) Brought to you by world-class BBC programs like Planet Earth, Frozen Planet, and Seven Worlds, One Planet.
- Free Printable: Use the Polar 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.
Teaching ecosystems helps students see how every living thing is connected. That's why we've created our Ecosystems Collection. We cover six ecosystems (grasslands, desert, coral reef, tropical rainforest, mountain, and polar). After watching videos on each ecosystem, challenge your students to become ecosystem experts by creating their own colorful reports filled with fascinating facts. (They’ll need to dig deeper with extra research, too!) There's a brochure template for each of the six ecosystems. Inside, students will uncover and share:
- Location of the ecosystem on a world map
- Adjectives that describe the ecosystem
- Three animals that live in the ecosystem
- Three plants that grow in the ecosystem
- The climate of the ecosystem
- What makes the ecosystem important
- Their favorite fun facts
Your students will summarize the most important details in their own words while keeping it clear and easy to understand. As they choose what to include, they’ll sharpen their ability to evaluate and combine information from different sources. Best of all, they’ll show off their creativity and communication skills by designing a brochure that’s as fun to read as it is informative!
Discover the amazing animals that live in the coldest environments on Earth in this Kahoot about the polar regions. From powerful polar bears and playful seals to emperor penguins and Arctic foxes, students will explore how animals survive freezing temperatures, icy waters, and long, dark winters.
This Kahoot highlights the special adaptations that help polar animals hunt, stay warm, raise their young, and move across snow and ice. Students will also learn how different species depend on one another within polar food chains and how life continues to thrive in these extreme habitats.
Watch the related BBC videos (below), then invite your Grade 3–8 students to test their knowledge and uncover the fascinating world of polar animals.
The article "Here Are 11 Arctic Animals That Not Only Survive, But Also Thrive in the Freezing Polar Landscape" from BBC's Discover Wildlife explores how various animals have adapted to endure the Arctic's extreme conditions. From the mighty polar bear and tusked walrus to the resilient Arctic fox and long-lived Greenland shark, the piece highlights their unique physical traits and survival behaviors.
The article "Polar Bears Are Suffering From Painful Ice Blocks on Their Paws Due to Climate Change" from BBC's Discover Wildlife explains how polar bears are experiencing painful ice blocks on their paws, some as large as 12 inches in diameter. Researchers from the University of Washington found that these ice blocks are causing deep injuries, and climate change is to blame for the freeze-thaw cycles that cause the blocks.
In Churchill, Manitoba — often called the “polar bear capital of the world” — polar bears are facing a changing home. As the Arctic warms, sea ice is forming later and melting earlier. That’s a big problem, because polar bears rely on the ice like a hunting platform to catch seals.
Now, they’re stuck on land for longer periods, waiting for the ice to return. And while they wait, hunger builds. Some bears are wandering closer to towns in search of food, digging through garbage and sometimes coming into conflict with people.
Scientists say the situation is serious: polar bear populations in some areas have dropped sharply in the last generation. As the ice keeps shrinking, the challenge of sharing space between humans and polar bears is only getting harder.
In What Happens When Polar Bears Wake Up Hungry?, narrator Sir David Attenborough explains that a mother polar bear must hunt seals before the spring ice melts. However, a blizzard threatens her two young cubs, and the sea ice is a dangerous place for them. This video is excerpted from BBC's Planet Earth, a breathtaking documentary series that highlights the natural wonders of our planet.
In Watch Polar Bears After Hibernation, narrator Sir David Attenborough explains how a mother polar bear and her cub hunt after waking up from hibernation. Learn how a mother polar bear tries to find a seal under the ice. Watch a polar bear cub learn and play. This video is excerpted from BBC’s Blue Planet, a definitive documentary series diving into the mysterious depths of the sea to discover the natural history of the world’s oceans and the rarely seen marine life that reside there.
Step into the frozen world of the Arctic and meet one of the planet’s most powerful, and vulnerable, predators: the polar bear. This BBC video playlist dives into the daily life of these majestic animals, from caring for playful cubs to navigating treacherous ice in search of food.
Through stunning footage and expert narration, learners will explore how polar bears adapt to extreme cold, hunt for seals, and survive in one of Earth’s harshest environments. Along the way, they’ll also discover how climate change is threatening the polar bear’s icy home, and why protecting it matters.
In How Walruses and Polar Bears Survive in the Arctic, narrator Sir David Attenborough shows walruses gathered on low-lying islands, where they nurse their young after giving birth on sea ice. Meanwhile, a male polar bear, weakened after seven days at sea and having lost half his weight over the summer, swims ashore in search of food. However, the massive walruses, the largest seals in the world with tusks over 3 feet (1 meter) long, prove to be a tough challenge. This video is excerpted from BBC’s Planet Earth, a breathtaking documentary series that highlights the natural wonders of our planet.