Life across Planet Earth – A Global Resource for Enlightened K-12 Education
Nature’s spectacular wonders are marvelous, but not magical. Her grand, global tapestry of lifeforms may seem mysterious – even dizzying until we see her patterns revealed when viewed across the great spans of land and sea that cover our planet. This is the central, compelling value of Biogeography – the field of science that makes sense of the kaleidoscopic diversity of life across the Earth by answering some very simple but intriguing and highly instructive questions, such as –
1) Where do particular species – penguins, parrots and polar bears – occur, and why there and not elsewhere?
2) Why is biological diversity highest in the tropical forests and coral reefs, and why not at the Poles, along the peaks of mountains or at the great depths of the oceans?
3) Why are species in one continent – for example Australia, so different from those in other continents?
4) Where did particular species, including our own species – Homo sapiens, first appear on the Earth, and how did they spread to other places, and in those places change to form the impressive diversity of life we see today?
5) Where do the world’s endangered species occur and how can we protect those precious sanctuaries of Nature’s wonders?

Biogeography has been answering these questions for well over two centuries – its guiding mantra being that the sometimes-overwhelming diversity of Nature’s creations can be understood by anyone as long as they place all this in an explicit geographic context – the places of nature. The mission of Life across Planet Earth is to provide the resources and pedagogical strategies to K-12 Educators across the globe so that their students can develop a truly enlightened  understanding of life across this amazing planet.
The Education Committee of the International Biogeography Society is developing a set of educational resources including manipulatives, illustrations, video vignettes and links to online maps of discovery (such as The Map of Life — https://mol.org/) that can be strategically adapted by educators themselves for their geographic regions, grade levels and the particular needs and interests of their students. All of our resources are made available online, at no charge, and have been reviewed and certified by the leading experts across the world to assure their accuracy, pedagogy and suitability for K-12 education.