Resources for Educators
National Children's Museum Climate Action Heroes
Our friends at National Children’s Museum have just launched their second virtual field trip, Climate Action Heroes, which empowers children to join the fight against climate change by discovering their inner climate action hero superpowers. Our Program Director, Sarah Red-Laird, is featured in the video as a real-life Pollinator Patrol for her work to educate and inspire communities to conserve bees and their habitat. This interactive learning tool is available to families and educators across the country at no cost to help inspire the next generation to defeat climate change.
10 Ways to Help Our Kids Help Bees
A round up of ten things you can do at school, or home, to get kids excited about becoming bee advocates!
Explore Oregon Bees is a bee-themed nutrition and garden environmental education activity packet developed at Oregon State University by the Oregon Bee Project and Food Hero. The content is best aligned for 4th graders. Objectives include 1) to increase children's willingness to taste vegetables and fruits, 2) broadening their knowledge of the role bees play in pollination to make healthy foods and 3) empowering kids to know ways to help bees make healthy foods.
Free supplies for educators - educational brochures, stickers, and activity sheets.
American Beekeeping Federation "E-Buzz" Kids and Bees Column Archive
This page will guide you to the last few years of “Kids and Bees” columns by Sarah Red-Laird, filled with information on books for kids about bees, safety and kids with bees, and more!
Sweet Virginia’s “Hive Alive” Curriculum
Sweet Virginia’s lesson plans help you lead your students to experience the wonder of the honey bee. You’ll find five lessons that can be used as we have presented them, in any order, or individually. The lesson pages include high-level summaries and activities and may be used by teachers and students; the full lesson PDFs include more background for teachers, readings and resources, and step-by- step instructions for lesson delivery
In this lesson, students discuss bees and the importance of pollinators. They then catch and observe bees in the garden. You’ll find that stand-aligned objectives, assessments, and procedures are already written for you to a middle school level. A great resource for helping kids understand the connections between bees and their own garden!
Vitamin Bee delivers huge doses of fun and much more with his curious facts about foods and the life of a bee, kid-friendly recipes and tips, all wrapped up in his love of music, art, and silly antics, that will inspire kids to make healthy choices, one episode at a time. Vitamin Bee also encourages kids, families, and schools to learn and work together in order to build the support needed to create a long-lasting healthy environment.
A fun, musical introduction to the waggle dance explained by well-recognized Phineas and Ferb characters. It’s a catchy song that the kids are bound to be singing for days!
PBS SciGirls "Bee Haven" Episode
An episode where the SciGirls use math, mapping and data visualization to help a colony of bees thrive in a downtown Phoenix neighborhood. Learn the basics of setting up a happy healthy honey bee hive in the city. This episode also teaches kids about mathematical survey techniques that can be used to quantify the number and diversity of plants in a neighborhood. Great for encouraging young girls to get excited about science and bees!
Pollinator Partnership Bee Smart Kit
A kit available for purchase that includes 10 lesson plans with pre- and post-tests, worksheets, relevant materials to each lesson. Lesson are geared towards children grade 3 to 6 and can be approached a few different ways: using school land to create/augment a garden habitat, using other demonstration areas to create/visit garden habitat, or using only in-classroom lessons and on-line experiences without a garden.
A blog post from U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s Pacific Region about the importance and diversity of pollinators. The post discusses an ongoing study inventorying the bee species present on wildlife refuges and the implications of the results. It also discusses pollinator decline.
A U.S. Fish & Wildlife page dedicated to pollinator education. This site has everything from educational video links to explanations of how you can help pollinators in your daily life. It also included in-depth definitions of pollinators and pollination, as well as links to pollinator trails near you. A great resource for those looking to educate themselves and those around them
People all over the country are collecting data on pollinators in their yards, gardens, schools and parks. This project takes counts of the number and types of pollinators visiting plants (especially sunflowers). They have been gathering information on pollinator service since 2008, and now have the largest single body of information about bee pollinator service in North America. Utilizing their thousands of observers, they can determine where pollinator service is strong or weak compared to averages.
NASA's Climate Kids: A Bee is More Than a Bug
An awesome description of how to make a clay bee and bee hive! The website also includes some information on topics such as threats to bees and bee life cycle.
Today in Louisiana Agriculture "Sweet Knowledge" Video
A short video to find inspiration for your own “World Honey Bee Day”!
From Disneynature, the studio that brought you "Earth", "Oceans", "African Cats" and "Chimpanzee", comes "Wings of Life" – a stunning adventure full of intrigue, drama and mesmerizing beauty. Narrated by Meryl Streep, this intimate and unprecedented look at butterflies, hummingbirds, bees, bats and flowers is a celebration of life, as a third of the world’s food supply depends on these incredible – and increasingly threatened – creatures.
Enter the fascinating world of honey bees with this imaginative and educational game! Children will delight as they become part of a swarm in search of a new nesting site. Each child assumes the role of a worker bee with special job assignments to help their colony grow. As they act out their jobs, a compelling tale unfolds: The Story of Bees! Children will buzz, run, sing and dance their way through colony life all while learning real, factual information about bees. They will face threats, make sacrifices and overcome it together, illustrating the benefits of teamwork. The Story of Bees! is flexible and can be played in a variety of settings with mixed ages and with a large range of group sizes.
Washington State University Pollinator Information
WSU’s “Pollination and Protecting Bees and other Pollinators” bulletin offers a brief introduction into topics such as flowers, pollinators, pollination, and declining honey bee populations. Check this paper out to “dip your toes” into the pollinator world.
Oregon is upping its pollinator protection with the Oregon Bee Project, a collaboration between the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), the Oregon State University (OSU) Extension Service, the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF), and a diverse array of bee-friendly stakeholders to maintain and enhance bee health in Oregon. The campaign uses science, education, research, and pollinator-friendly practices to protect bees around the state.
Can you tell a Digger bee from a Bumblebee? How about a Green sweat bee from a Mining bee? This backyard bees poster displays over 130 different bee species (which is only 3% of all bee species in North America) to help you improve your bee knowledge and decorate your space. We even have one hanging in the BGO office!
“The Bees in Your Backyard: A Guide to North America’s Bees” Book
This book provides a comprehensive guide of all bees in the United States and Canada and features more than 900 full-color photos. If you are interested in identifying bee species, studying bees, or bringing all the bees to your yard, this book is thorough, accessible, and informative.
Assorted Books by Dr. Thomas Seeley
Dr. Thomas Seeley is a biologist, author, and professor at Cornell University studying “swarm intelligence,” or bees’ collective decision-making processes. You may have heard of his popular book “The Honeybee Democracy,” which details the debates, debacles, and democratic decision-making processes that occur within bee colonies. Seeley makes academic research engaging and accessible, and we are huge fans!
The Honeybee Conservancy is a charity focused on bee conservation and increasing access to sustainable food in under-served communities. Their work lies at the important intersection between healthy bees, healthy food, healthy people, and healthy communities. You can donate or learn more about their initiatives by clicking on the link above!
Beekeeping? In a city? You probably have some questions, and so does the Urban Beekeeping Lab! The Urban Beekeeping Lab is a research-based nonprofit in Boston, Mass. investigating beekeeping and bee health in a bustling city. They are delving into topics such as using honeybees to aid post-natural disaster recovery, finding honey bee blue zones, and apitherapy. Fascinating stuff! Check out their website and blog to learn about the cutting edge research going on at the UBL.
Bee Positive is an environmental initiative showing people simple steps to help save the bees and support their local biodiversity. Take positive environmental action and find out how you can help save the bees in your own neighbourhood by taking The Bee Kind Challenge.
Planet Bee is working towards a future in which children and adults are exposed to global environmental issues, and given the tools to combat them. They envision a world in which all individuals feel empowered to take action for their planet, regardless of race, gender, class, or location. Programs are provided at no cost to schools and nonprofits in dedication to social justice, preventing any barrier to inclusion.
The Bee Cause Project and their tiny partners, the bees, work to engage students of all ages with their own environments through observation based learning. Their STEAM-based curriculum, educational hives, and international network build learning opportunities in classrooms and communities, in order to inspire the next generation of environmental stewards.
An entertaining description of honey bee relating to their lifestyles and importance. It includes a few fun facts like how large they are and how fast they fly.
Montana Pollinator Education Project
A wide range of resources including: bulletin board illustration/information cards, lesson plans for grades 2 to 8, recommended reading for students and teachers, and link to additional resources for teachers and students. This website covers all forms of pollinators, not just bees! A wide range of materials and approaches here—excellent!
The Honey Files: A Bee’s Life - A Teaching Guide, Grade Levels 4-6
An extensive resource for teachers that includes 13 different activities, accompanying worksheets, and an educator’s overview on each topic. The overviews are a great resource for those who want to teach about bees but may not know a whole lot themselves!
The Sweet Virginia Foundation provides engaging and informative apiary-based curriculum to teachers designed to “bring to life the magic of honey bees for elementary school students.” With their Hive Alive program, teachers receive instructions for lesson delivery, readings and resources, guided activities, and full lesson PDFs. Their “Ask a Beekeeper” forum also includes informational videos from beekeepers all over the world responding to elementary school students’ bee questions.