Kids’ corner

Hope For Conservation Series

The Hope for Conservation series was created to showcase all the good being done by conservationists around the world to ensure a future for wildlife. In 2020, the IUCN created the “Green Status of Species” to detail all the work being done to save species and to note and celebrate those animals and plants that have shown noteworthy gains due to the action of dedicated and passionate conservationists. We wanted to bring some of those conservationists to the spotlight and so we teamed up with Exploring By the Seat of Your Pants and the IUCN Green Status of Species!

Exploring By the Seat of Your Pants has organised a wonderful series of talks with scientists who have been involved with the IUCN Green Status of Species as part of this project and we designed resources about each of the species they work on. Make sure to join us on the first week of November for one or for all of those talks and be inspired to take action to help save these iconic creatures or others near you by checking the timetable here: https://www.exploringbytheseat.com/wildlife/. The events will be 45-50 minutes long and feature a 15-20 minute presentation from a speaker, followed by a live Kahoot! quiz and then Q&A with the speaker. These live events are free for classrooms to join!

Big thank you to our summer interns from the University of Oxford, Bethany Barnes, Thi Nguyen, Natalie Bright, Siddiq Islam, James Hubbard, Rebecca Roodt, Isabel Fernandez-Victorio, and George Rabin for their help in developing the resources below and to Bilal Mustafa, Divyashree Rana, Sofia Castelló y Tickell, and Trisha Gupta for interviewing some of the speakers in order to make those resources. If you would like to get the full pack with all the resources please email us at admin@conservationoptimism.org.

Hope for penguins with Grant Humphries

With their tuxedo attire, funny walks and incredible life stories penguins have captured our hearts. With a changing world, however, they still face many threats. Find out what is being done to save penguins and ensure that we have a future with these unique feathered friends in the document below:

Hope for California condors with Claudia Hermes

California condors are one of the all-time icons of conservation. Brought back from the very brink of extinction through a concerted and very public push to save them, find out what went into saving this incredible bird – one of the largest on the planet in the document below:

Hope for white sharks with Julia Spaet

Sharks are among the most misunderstood and important groups of animals on the planet! Check out what makes them so extraordinary, some of the threats they face from mankind and what we’re doing to help ensure a future where oceans are teeming with these apex predators in the document below:

Hope for Philippine crocodiles with Merlijn van Weerd

Find out what the Mabuwaya Foundation, a Conservation NGO, does to protect both the critically endangered Philippine crocodile and the other incredible animals in North East Luzon in the Philippines. The document below details the work their team has done to help bring back one of the world’s rarest crocodilians from the brink:

Hope for whale sharks with Gonzalo Araujo

Discover some of the incredible work that has been done to help save the whale shark, the biggest fish in the ocean and one of its most iconic in the document below:

Hope for Coral Reefs with Tim Lamont

Did you know that scientists can listen in on coral reefs? Find out more about the incredible soundscapes on the rich and biodiverse reefs and what conservationists are doing to help rebuild these amazing ecosystems to ensure a future for the many thousands of species that call them home in the document below:

Hope for bison with Luke Rogers

Bison are the iconic species of the plains of North America, inextricably linked with the land and the Indigenous people across the continent. They are also increasingly an exemplar of conservation done well – growing in numbers through many successful reintroductions and reclaiming lost territory. Find out more about the amazing work happening in Alaska to help bring back the bison in the document below:

Hope for Dracula orchids

Find out about the fascinating world of orchids to get your dose of plant conservation in the document below:

Hope for tigers with Abishek Harihar

Find out how global big cat conservation organisation Panthera has been working towards protecting the greatest of the big cats in India and around the globe! The document below highlights some of the amazing conservation work that has been done over the last few decades to bring this icon of the wilderness back from the brink.

Learn all about UK Seabirds with Seabird Watch and the Puffarrazzi project at RSPB:

We teamed up with Seabird Watch and the Puffarrazzi project at RSPB to create this content. Thank you to our winter interns from the University of Oxford, Amy Louise Mason, Isabel Schmidt, Isobel Hawkins, and Layla Sklar for their help developing those resources. You can download the full pack of resources as a PDF document at the end of this section.

10 posters of species that are making us feel optimistic:

In English:

Colouring Sheets in English:

In Chinese:

In Spanish:

In French:

In Portuguese:

In Russian:

In Bahasa Indonesia:

We also have a quiz (Which Conservation Optimism Creature are you?) for adults and children alike (we know you all enjoy quizzes!), and if you are multi-lingual, we are currently calling for help translating these posters into as many languages as possible- just get in touch!

Enjoyed those resources and would like to support us to carry on our mission? If you and your organization value the work that we do and would be interested in helping to ensure we are able to continue to put out these kinds of projects, we would be honoured to discuss partnership opportunities with you. You can also donate directly below.

All about penguins:

We teamed up with the penguinologists from Penguin Watch to create this content.

Colouring Sheets:

Iroro Tanshi

Kini Roesler