Welcome to the PLANET4B Biodiversity Engagement Course for Educators!
This guide helps you explore the course and bring biodiversity education into your teaching.
What is PLANET4B?
PLANET4B was a Horizon Europe research and innovation project focused on how to improve biodiversity decision-making so that it is:
- More just and inclusive
- Better informed by people’s diverse values around nature
- Connected to transformative change
The project combined research with grassroots work in 11 case studies spread across Europe and beyond, working on topics like:
- Food and farming systems
- Fashion and global supply chains
- Youth access to nature
- Education and youth participation
- Community gardens
- Nature-based wellbeing
A guiding thread throughout PLANET4B has been ensuring that biodiversity action involves and benefits everyone, especially those groups that tend to be excluded from environmental decisions.
This Biodiversity Engagement Course for Educators translates the project’s themes and insights as well as tested biodiversity engagement methods into accessible and engaging learning experiences for you and your students.
Why biodiversity education matters
Young people are living through a time of unparalleled ecological change. They have the right to understand why biodiversity loss is happening, and how we can work together to change track.
This course equips educators to:
- Explore the root causes of the biodiversity crisis, not just its symptoms
- Introduce systems thinking and multiple ways of valuing nature
- Highlight who is most affected and why, using an intersectional lens
- Support young people as citizens and changemakers, not just consumers
The PLANET4B Biodiversity Engagement Course can help students see the connection between global challenges that require structural or systemic change, with community action and personal learning that support cultural change.
What is inside the Biodiversity Engagement Course?
A flexible, modular, ready-to-use learning experience:
✔ Designed for secondary and higher education
✔ Suitable for formal and non-formal learning settings
✔ Free and multilingual
Course structure
The Course has four thematic modules:
- Biodiversity and the natural world in crisis (foundational - start here)
- Food sovereignty for a just and biodiverse future
- Slowing down fashion for a just and biodiverse future
- The benefits of connecting with nature
Each module includes:
- Online educator training (browser translation available)
- Teaching notes and matching slides for two 1-hour lessons
- Secondary (14-18) and higher education (18+) versions
- Downloadable in English, French, Portuguese, Romanian
- Creative and experiential Biodiversity Engagement Activities for students
Biodiversity Engagement Activities
You can use these before, during, or after lessons - or as standalone activities:
- Pathbreak Biodiversity JENGA®
- Biodiversity Cookbook
- Biodiversity in the Cupboard
- Photovoice
- Participatory Filmmaking
- Nature Hike
- Mindfulness
- Debriefing
These activities are low-cost, accessible, and designed to boost motivation and learning.
How to implement a module
- Take the online educator course
- Download the teaching notes and slides
- Deliver the two 1-hour lessons in class
- Add Activities depending on your time and context
We know that teaching time is limited. The course is designed to support you, not add additional burdens.
You can:
- Deliver all modules, or select the most relevant ones
- Co-teach with colleagues across subjects to share the workload
- Expand lessons with more discussion or reflection when possible
Emotional reflection
Learning about biodiversity loss can be heavy – emotions are part of the learning process. We encourage you to make space for processing emotions and thoughts through the Debriefing activity so that students feel heard and supported.
Supporting action for biodiversity
Each module ends with ideas for action at three levels:
Support and certification
If you would like assistance bringing the materials to your class, contact the TEHRA team at info@tehra.org for free support or to become part of a community of engaged educators.
Educators who:
✔ Complete an online educator course module
✔ Deliver one or more lessons
✔ Share feedback through a short survey
can request a TEHRA certificate to recognise their professional development by emailing info@tehra.org.
Ready when you are!
Explore → Choose a module → Take the online educator course → Download teaching materials → Teach → Inspire your students to take action for biodiversity
