Meet The Rangers

Lesson Plan
My Notes

Skills

Citizenship
Critical Thinking

External References

Minecraft world file to support this lesson.

Find out more about amazing rangers and rangers in training who are working to help save our wildlife, their stories and why they are committed to pro

Aerial Support

Aerial support and data collection has become critical to wildlife monitoring, ranger deployment, and to counter poaching operations

Community Rangers

Conservation really does begin with the community around it, wildlife conservation is inextricably linked with the livelihoods of local communities.

Wildlife area management

An extremely important part of conservation and protecting our wildlife, is the role of wildlife area management.

Dog Handler

Did you know that dogs play an important part in protecting wildlife and stopping poachers in their tracks?

Learning Objectives

Develop an understanding of the role of a Ranger in wildlife conservation
Explore day to day duties of a Wildlife Ranger in the conservation of animals and their habitats
NGSS - 5-ESS3-1. Obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth’s resources and environment.

Guiding Ideas

The main idea behind this lesson is for students to role play being a wildlife ranger in Africa. To imagine themselves in the life of a wildlife ranger, carrying out daily duties to protect elephants. Students will learn the practicalities of the job as well as the joys and the dangers of carrying out their tasks, developing empathy with the people who carry out this vital job.

Questions that should be used to guide and challenge students include:
1.    What is a Wildlife Ranger?
2.    Where do they work?
3.    What duties might a ranger expect to undertake in a typical day?
4.    What do rangers believe are the ‘best’ parts of their job?
5.    What do rangers believe are the most difficult parts of their job?
6.    In what ways do you think the work of rangers helps to protect and conserve animals?

Student Activities

1. Invite Students to visit the HQ map room, where they start on the Minecraft: Education Edition map:
Ask students to take notes on the following:

a. Who is there? There are several rangers in the Ranger HQ. What are the roles and responsibilities they undertake? Students should click on the Rangers to find out.

2. After an initial exploration, invite each group (or pair or individual) to select one of the Rangers to shadow (find their Ranger the assigned colored trail). Learners should spend time shadowing the ranger to find out more details about their specific role. Ask each group to collect as much information as they can about each of the tasks, and how it contributes to protecting wildlife.

3. Once learners have interacted with the different characters in the map, and have gathered information they set out to find, have a class discussion based around the guiding questions above.

4. Ask each group to prepare a short profile (in whichever format you choose – presentation, video, sway, poster presentation) on their specific ranger to share with the rest of the class. Refer students to the video links in this resource. These will give them an accurate insight into their specific ranger. The collective sharing of information about each of the different Rangers should provide a broad perspective on the kind of work undertaken by Wildlife Rangers.

5. As an individual activity, invite students to write a creative account of a typical day in the life of a Wildlife Ranger. The diary entry should be from a first-person perspective and should assume that the reader is someone who has never been to this country before and therefore descriptions of the landscape, the wildlife habitat – and the animals themselves will greatly enhance the account.

Note: Use the videos in the External References section to assist the students to create their Ranger profile and diary.

6. Using the ‘Book and Quill‘ function of Minecraft:Education Edition, ask students to create and maintain their diary in-game. This can include images of the landscape, plants, animals and rangers using the ‘Camera’ function.

Performance Expectations

In this lesson, we would expect students to:

•    Demonstrate an appetite for exploration
•    Interact with Non-Player Characters (Rangers) as an initial point of contact
•    Be prepared to explore the map environment to gather more detailed information
•    Prepare a detailed character profile on one Ranger
•    Present their character profile to the class
•    Develop creative writing skills and produce a diary account of a typical day in the life of a ranger