This amazing website has so much to offer students of all ages that you’ll never run out of things to explore!
A Wildscreen Project
The ARKive project is an initiative of Wildscreen, a not-for-profit charity organization, whose mission is to promote the public understanding and appreciation of the world’s biodiversity, and the need for its conservation, through the power of wildlife imagery. Specifically, they are creating the ultimate multimedia guide to the world’s endangered animals, plants and fungi.
In their About Us section, Wildscreen explains how they hope to accomplish this goal:
“The ARKive project has unique access to the very best of the world’s wildlife films and photographs, with more than 3,500 of the world’s leading filmmakers and photographers actively contributing to the project, and giving ARKive unprecedented access to their materials.”
They really mean it, too, about unprecedented access!
Using The Arkive
Search for a specific organism, or search by species groups (birds, mammals, invertebrates, etc., by conservation status, by eco region, and by geography.
Once you locate what you’re interested in, you see a page with high quality photos, videos, and a Fact File. Just beneath the title are tabs leading to specific topics such as Description, Biology, Habitat, Status, References (with links!), Glossary, and Find Out More. There’s also a link to print out a Fact Sheet, consisting of one of the photos of that species, and ALL the information on the page.
Download Photos And Videos
All images and videos are copyrighted but available for download “in hard copy and digital format for use within a registered educational establishment, provided that the integrity of the Material is maintained and that copyright ownership and authorship is appropriately acknowledged.” They may be incorporated into lesson plans, presentations, worksheets and projects, etc.
Right-click on a photograph to download and save it. The photographer’s name and a contact URL are on the image, and this should not be removed.
For videos, choose any video and then look for a Download link below the text description. You can download the video file in .mov format.
Link To ARKive From Your Site
You also can link to a photo or movie on the ARKive website. Clicking the link button gives you some html to embed into a web page. This block of code creates a thumbnail image that when clicked goes directly to that photo on the ARKive site.
If you’re handy with an html editor, you could set up a custom menu with a group of related thumbnails in this way. Students will enjoy being able to choose a favorite video, and you could use this menu when presenting a topic to a class.
MyARKive Scrapbooks
But you don’t need to go to that much trouble! Another option, MyARKive, lets you set up custom online scrapbooks with related photos and/or videos with your own captions and header paragraph, all without seeing one tiny bit of computer code. This option used to be in the top menu, but now it is hidden among the links after the text description of a photo or video. Look for this link: “Add to scrapbook”, or use the link from this page to get to MyARKive
You create a scrapbook and name it in one step. Then just add photos and videos with a click as you explore ARKive! You can write a custom caption for each item if you choose, and an overall introduction for each scrapbook. Click here to look at a scrapbook I set up for Madagascar Lemurs, and here to see the one I set up for Madagascar Adventures.
Teaching Materials
If that isn’t enough to make you an ARKive fan, hit FOR TEACHERS in the top menu and take a look at their educational materials! First, there are teaching materials divided up by age groups. These include classroom presentations, activities and handouts, teachers’ notes and links to ARKive species profiles and scrapbooks on science topics such as adaptation, endangered species, food chains, natural selection, identification, conservation and biodiversity. My screen shot is from the 5-7 year old section, because the lists for 7-11 years and 11-14 years were so long they would not fit on a page.
Online Science Games
In addition, there are over a dozen online science games and puzzles. To find these, click FOR KIDS in the top menu. There are vocabulary games, quizzes, and animal jumble puzzles. There are action games, like keeping a sand lizard alive, helping a male spider avoid being lunch for his mate, and getting the salmon upstream.
There’s a detective game. You can design your own habitat. And, for the quick and coordinated, there is a game trying to catch rare animals on camera. Of course, there’s an app, too. It’s about survival, and you can try it free on iPad/iPhone® or Android®.
Off-Computer Materials
On the FOR KIDS page under Fun Stuff, there also are off-computer games to download. Try outdoor activities such as Species Bingo. Make your own zoo with origami animals. Just in time for Halloween, print out and color your own animal mask. If you aren’t sure about the colors, check out a photo of the animal on ARKive!
ARKive Search Box
I’ve added a link to ARKive in the sidebar under both Info Links and Free Stuff. But to give you a chance to try out ARKive right now, I’ve also put a special search box on this page.
The code for this search box is available for download from the strong>ARKive site to anyone who wants to add it to their web page. You can type in a species to search for, and go directly to the ARKive site to find out all about it.
Just remember to hit the back button and come back here to the Attic!
Search ARKive, a unique collection of thousands of videos, images and fact-files illustrating the world’s species. |
Application needed: Web Browser
Subject area: Science.
Level: All Levels, Author.
Links-Resources
ARKive Project link: Click Here! Home page of ARKive, a multimedia library of endangered species.
ARKive Education link: Click Here! Direct link to the education page of ARKive.org. Links on this page lead to teaching materials, online science games, and downloadable off-computer science activities.
ARKive For KIds link: Click Here! Direct link to the “FOR KIDS” page of ARKive.org. Links on this page lead to online science games, apps, quizzes, e-cards, and downloadable off-computer science activities.
MyARKive link: Click Here! Direct link to the sign-in page of MyARKive, an option to assemble custom sets of video and photos from ARKive.org. You also can sign up for MyARKive from this page.
Terms Of Use link: Click Here! ARKive Terms Of Use explains the rights of teachers to use photos, videos, and classroom materials from the website.
ARKive Search Box link: Click Here! A short block of code you can download and embed into your web page to set up an ARKive search box on your website.
