1.2 Lesson Plan
I.
II.
Title: Habitat Pen Pals
Objective: Students will learn about the diversity of habitats around the world, and
will write letters from the perspective of organisms living in these habitats.
III.
Materials:
1. Pictures of habitats and animals
2. Flipchart paper
3. Tape
4. Paper and pencils
5. Reference books (optional)
IV.
Procedure:
1. Preparation (before the lesson):
 Gather magazines and newspapers that are good sources of pictures (Newsweek,
Kyiv Post, National Geographic in Russian, etc).
 Before the activity, try to cut out a picture of each of the habitats and several
animals that live in each habitat. Spread the animal pictures out on a table, and put
the habitat pictures where you can easily get to them.
 Write the name of each habitat on a slip of paper. (You'll need one slip per
student, so make 2 or 3 slips per habitat, if necessary.) Put the slips into a sack.
 Write the name of each habitat across the top of a piece of flipchart paper.
2. Doing the Activity:
 Have the students think about some nearby natural areas. Ask them to describe
these areas. For example, they might mention a nearby park, pond, forest, river,
meadow...even a vacant lot. Write these suggested habitats on the board as the
students mention them.
 Explain that each of these areas, and many others as well, make up all or part of
an animal's habitat. Ask the students if they can describe what a habitat is. (An
animal's habitat is the place where an animal lives, and where it gets what it needs
to survive—food, water, shelter, and a place to breed and raise young.) Ask the
students to name the types of animals that they would expect to live in the local
habitats they mentioned.
 Tell the students that there are many different kinds of habitats. Describe different
habitats (tundra, rainforest, savanna, desert, ocean) and hold up each of the habitat
pictures you cut out earlier. Have the students try to identify where that habitat
might be found and what the climate is like there. (Define words that the students
may not be familiar with, such as savanna and deciduous.) Then have volunteers
tape each picture to the appropriate piece of easel paper, right under the name of
the habitat. Tape the pieces of easel paper around the room.
 Have the students come up, one at a time, and choose an appropriate animal
picture to tape under the habitat picture of their choice. Offer direction, as
necessary, on which animals go with which habitats.

Depending on the level of your group, you might want to explain that there are
similar kinds of habitats around the world. For example, tropical rain forests are
found in South America, Africa, Australia, and elsewhere. Deserts are also found
in many places around the world—and so are grasslands. Ask the students to
explain the relationship between climate and habitat. (Regional climate determines
the types of habitats the area provides—in other words, what kinds of plants and
animals can live there.) But even though there are similar habitats around the
world, there are differences in the animals and plants from one place to the next.
For example, even though parrots are found in tropical rain forests throughout the
world, different types, or species, are unique to certain areas.
 Have each person pick one of the habitat slips out of a sack.
 Tell the students to look at the completed habitat "posters" they created earlier.
Have them imagine that they are one of the animals living in the habitat whose
name they drew. Explain that they'll be writing a letter to a "pen pal" from the
point of view of this animal.
 Assign each person a pen pal, but don't tell the students which person represents
which animal. Explain that students should keep their "animal identities" and the
identities of their habitats a secret.
 Write the following questions and statements on the board:

Name some other animals that live m your habitat.

Describe some of the plants that grow in your habitat.

Describe any special features of your habitat.

What do you eat?

What’s the climate like in your habitat?
 Tell the students that they should address each of these questions and statements
in their letters. (They can also include other information, if they wish.) Encourage
the students to be imaginative in the ways they address each point. For example, a
parrot in a tropical rain forest might say, "It's been very hot here lately, but that's
nothing new. It's hot here all year round!" And instead of simply saying, "I eat
insects," a pen pal could say, "I had a delicious breakfast of ants and beetles this
morning." Explain that, by addressing each point in an entertaining way, each
"animal" will be providing hints about his or her identity and habitat.
 Give the students time to research, as needed, and write their letters. Have them
fold the letters in half and write the appropriate addresses on the outside.
 Deliver the letters to the appropriate pen pals. Give the students time to read the
letters they received and to try to figure out which animal and habitat their letter is
referring to. Then have the students share the letters they received with the rest of
the group. (If a student is unable to figure out which animal or habitat his or her
pen pal represents, ask for opinions from classmates.)
Enrichment
After the students have figured out the animals and habitats that their pen pals represent, ask
each person to act out his or her animal. Let each person in the audience try to guess which
performer is his or her “habitat pen pal.”
VARIATION
The activity could be done the same way using plant species instead of animal species.
Background information
A habitat is defined as the place where an animal or plant normally lives, and is often
characterized by a dominant plant form or physical characteristic (i.e., the forest habitat, the
stream habitat). Some species are adapted to living in only one type of habitat. For example,
you might see plenty of parrot species in a tropical rainforest, but most of these species
probably wouldn't be able to survive in the temperate forests covering much of the United
States.
Other organisms can survive within several habitat types. Opossums live in deciduous
forests, tropical forests, and even tropical rain forests. They can also survive in suburbs and
cities.
Plants have a lot to do with where animals can live. That's because animals rely on
certain plants for food or shelter. The types of plants that grow in an area depend on the area's
climate.