World Wildlife Day in the Classroom

On March 3rd, it is World Wildlife Day, a time to celebrate and raise awareness of the world’s wild animals and plants. The theme for World Wildlife Day 2025 is ‘Wildlife Conservation Finance: Investing in People and Planet’ and #WorldWithoutWildlife. There’s a wide range of educational resources available within Purple Mash that support the theme that you can use to celebrate World Wildlife Day.

Why is World Wildlife Day Important?

World Wildlife Day is a fantastic opportunity for schools to teach students about the importance of protecting our planet's incredible biodiversity. On this day, children can learn more about endangered species, threats to the ecosystem, and the role they can play in conservation.

Using Purple Mash to Support Wildlife Education

Interactive Tools

There are lots of fantastic tools within Purple Mash that can be used to explore and learn about wildlife, nature and conservation:

• Use 2Survey to find out how much their classmates know about a particular species, or what they know about conservation in general.

• Results from 2Survey could then be organised in 2Graph.
• Write and share a blog all about wildlife, using 2Blog, to raise awareness.
• Create a class database of endangered animals using a shared 2Investigate file, based on research they have completed.
• Try the Rainforest 2DIY 3D game and collect all the endangered animals before their habitats are destroyed! Once the level is completed, they can edit the game - adding more levels, different animals, more obstacles and even a tense backing track!
• Create a poster promoting conservation of an area or a particular species using a 2Publish Plus template, like this 'Save the Rhino' one.

Wild Writing Activities

Children could research and write about a variety of endangered animals using writing templates, from the Sumatran Orangutan and the mountain gorilla to the poison dart frog and golden lion tamarin. They can discuss what they think might happen if people keep cutting down trees in the forest?

Let them imagine they are visiting the rainforest and then write a postcard about their experiences using our Rainforest Template. They could also use our Rainforest Leaflet Template to create an informative leaflet to present their internet research on rainforests and what we can do to preserve them.

There are also Videos for Creative Writing inside Purple Mash. These are five-part writing adventures that follow a plot and have videos and resources for each episode. The Trouble with Tamarins takes place in a zoo and involves a local primary school teacher trying to find a missing Tamarin...

Reading about Wildlife

To help pupils with their writing projects, there are fantastic non-fiction texts about animals by DK Learning on Purple Mash! They include:

• A World Full of Animals
• Curious Underwater Creatures
• How do you Spot a Big Cat?
• Wild Animal Facts

If you are a Serial Mash subscriber, you will also have access to full DK Learning non-fiction books, with some being perfect for World Wildlife Day.

There are also many lovely stories about wildlife within Serial Mash. Our recommendations are:

As well as DK Learning texts, Purple Mash also includes Resources on Popular Texts, so if you're reading a novel in class, check to see if there are resources for it there! One of the texts that have resources is Kensuke's Kingdom, which discusses gibbons and orangutans, so the book and resources work well for World Wildlife Day.

Top 10 Deadliest Animals

Last year, Purple Mash Publishing released its very first Top 10s book with 25 fantastic Top 10 lists submitted by Purple Mash pupils! Inside you'll find QR codes for quizzes, colouring activities, jokes and more.

Some ideas for using the book in the classroom include:

• Create a predator profile
• Explore food chains
• Design a new deadly animal
• Debate: deadly or misunderstood?
• Locate and research habitats of deadly animals
• Create a Deadly Database of animals
• Write a story from the perspective of one of the animals

This brilliant books is available now from the 2Simple shop for just £5.99, with discounts on multiple copies.

Wildlife Digital Art

Last year's annual World Wildlife Day International Youth Art Contest allowed digital art to be entered, and there are some fantastic pieces that were entered which can serve to be inspiration for your students to create their own artwork in Purple Mash.

Children can use Purple Mash's paint tools 2Paint and 2Paint a Picture once they have chosen their animal species.

We would love to see any artwork created for World Wildlife Day - please do share your work with us on Facebook and Twitter!

Useful links

World Wildlife Day information and posters

WWF endangered species information, including the rhino, tiger, and orangutan