This post was written by Heather Chiles, an Engagement and Marketing Strategy staff member at the National Geographic Society.
A small spark of curiosity can create a wave of change. Our National Geographic Explorers uplift the next generation of conservationists and storytellers around the world.
Conservation begins with education.
Elephants have long held a dear place in the hearts of our National Geographic Explorers. This World Elephant Day, take a deeper look into how elephants teach us about compassion, empathy, and trust.
Empower your students on their ability to make an impact and lead future generations of African Elephant and Asian Elephant Conservation.
Help your students to better understand the vital role of Asian and African Elephants with this engaging and informative Elephant 101 video.
Ask Your Students: Did You Know?
1. Elephants have a variety of rumbles and sounds, the cry of an infant can be heard 6 miles away. Elephants can also communicate with infrasonic vocalizations, at a frequency below 20 hertz.
2. Elephants display altruistic tendencies such as picking off a branch of food for a friend that cannot reach. Explorer Paula Kahumbu witnessed this in Secrets of the Elephants. Show your students the unbreakable bond between an Elephant’s matriarch (Listed in the Animal Families section).
3. African Elephants are one of the few mammals that recognize themselves in the mirror.
Share fun and informative facts on the Natural History of African Elephants with your classroom!
Spotlight: Explorer Classroom On Demand
Add Explorer Classroom to your lesson plan with Explorer and filmmaker Sangita Iyer to learn about her work protecting endangered Asian elephants of India by engaging the local community in solutions. She established Voice for Asian Elephants Society to protect the elephants and empower local people with skills and resources through employment and education opportunities.
Visit our website for stunning photography in the Photo Ark by Joel Sartore and key information on African and Asian Elephants’ trunks and tusks, herds, diets, threats to survival, and ongoing conservation efforts.
View the full Elephant Education Collection today!
OUR IMPACT
National Geographic Explorer-led programs are bright beacons of hope for awe-inspiring African and Asian elephants. Their work amplifies elephant conservation and education for a future of empowered youth conservationists and storytellers.
National Geographic Explorer Sangita Iyer has made it her life’s mission to protect the remaining 27,000 Asian elephants in the most populated country in the world, India. Even though 80% of Asian elephant habitat is destroyed in India, Sangita believes in the power of impact and conservation work.
Sangita’s project examines the essential partnership between conservation and education. Environmental studies give teachers the opportunity to inform young minds and empower students around the world to become the change-makers of tomorrow. Her project, Protecting Wildlife by Integrating Systems Thinking Principles in Secondary Schools of West Bengal, seeks to mend the bridge between environmental awareness and action. Action that can save lives and deter human-elephant conflict.
Ecological knowledge informs the next generation on their vital role in preserving the world around them and their ability to create an impact, no matter the size. Wildlife and ecosystems vary vastly around the world. However, no matter where educators are they have the ability to pass the torch of amplification to create a better tomorrow with strategic and purposeful curriculum planning and resources. A spark of curiosity from any student can create a wave of change felt around the world.
With the funding provided by the National Geographic Society, Sangita’s vision is to, “Create communities where people and elephants share spaces, and coexist harmoniously with each other, while protecting the forests and their inhabitants, as well as human communities living on the forest fringes.”
National Geographic Explorer Sangita Iyer’s Mission:
• Using appreciative inquiry techniques, empower teachers to design curricula grounded in the principles of deep ecology, systems biology, inquiry-based, and nature immersion learning experiences.
• The first phase involves developing a curriculum unit by integrating systems thinking and ecological principles of sustainable living systems into some of the West Bengal school curricula.
• Specifically, we are creating a curriculum unit, exemplifying elephants, which can be applied to any wildlife species in any region.
African Elephants
National Geographic Explorer Paula Kahumbu took us on a journey into the lives of African elephants in Secrets of the Elephants. Her conservation work focuses on halting elephant poaching in Kenya and changing laws necessary for the betterment of society and African elephants.
As the CEO of WildLifeDirect, Paula believes in the importance of fostering the next generation of conservationists. The work of our Explorers empowers the next generation of Kenyan conservationists to tell the ancient stories of their vibrant ecosystem that over 30,000 African elephants call home.
African savannah elephants, the largest living land mammal, are a keystone species that maintain the savanna ecosystem as a grassland.
Elephants are considered ecosystem engineers just like humans that interact with the world around them. Ecosystems greatly benefit from the behaviors, habits, and interactions of elephants with the environment.
An African elephant’s footprint on a path of migration could forge an entire ecosystem for tadpoles and microorganisms. An Asian elephant can create soil fertilizer and disperse plant seeds across a wide landscape.
Without elephants, ecosystems would be vastly different.Conservation and illumination of vital Explorer work can drive positive change. Conservation begins with education.
Read more about Explorer-led programs that uplift the next generation of conservationists through education and outreach.
What Can I Do? Educator Edition
• Be a guiding light for your students in the vital connection of education to conservation
• Bring environmental education to your classroom, around the worldEmpower your students on their ability to drive significant change and impact
• Uplift your students’ confidence to share their solutions to our current environmental problems in the Slingshot Challenge
• Advocate for environmental education and elephant conservation
• Share the Elephant Collection and almost 3,000 National Geographic Educational resources to increase empathy for beloved elephants and opportunities for solutions
• Consider a contribution to Explorer-led conservation work through National Geographic
• Leverage the Education Hub for go-to classroom materials on conservation
• Sign up for Explorer Classroom to inspire your students
• Facilitate an Explorer mindset in your students to encourage them to be the future of wildlife conservation
What Can I Do? Youth/Student Edition
• Get involved in your school’s environmental club or ask your teacher how you can start one
• Share your great idea in the Slingshot Challenge
• Tell your friends about the importance of caring for the environment and conservation
• Explore the Elephant Collection
• Be a citizen scientist and explore your own backyard
• Read about the Young Explorers and how they use their voice
• Follow @InsideNatGeo on Instagram