Panda resources for teachers

Free, classroom ready panda materials for K to 12 teachers. Everything here can be printed straight from your browser. There is no sign up, nothing is collected from students, and these pages carry no ads.

Lesson ideas by grade band

Grades K to 2: what pandas need

Read the giant panda guide aloud and ask students to list what a panda needs to live: food (bamboo), water, shelter and space. Link to NGSS K-LS1-1 (patterns in what plants and animals need to survive). Finish with the Bamboo Breakfast game on a shared screen.

Grades 3 to 5: structures and habitats

Compare the two pandas using giant vs red panda. Students fill in a two column chart of body features and explain how each helps the animal survive in mountain forests. Links to NGSS 4-LS1-1 (structures that support survival) and 3-LS4-3 (some organisms survive well in a habitat and others do not). Play Which Panda Is It? as a class check.

Grades 6 to 8: food, energy and populations

Use the diet page and Nie and colleagues (2015), who found giant pandas use exceptionally little daily energy. Ask: how does a low energy lifestyle help an animal that eats mostly low nutrition bamboo? Extend with the conservation page on bamboo flowering and habitat loss. Links to NGSS MS-LS2-1 (effects of resource availability on organisms and populations).

Grades 9 to 12: classification and evidence

Discuss how scientists decide what counts as a species, using Hu and colleagues (2020), whose genomic study argued red pandas are two species, and the IUCN assessment that still treats them as one. Students weigh the evidence in a short written argument. Links to NGSS HS-LS4-1 (evidence for common ancestry and diversity). The research page lists the papers with DOIs.

Printable quiz

1. What food makes up almost all of a giant panda's diet?
2. What is the IUCN Red List status of the giant panda?
3. What is the IUCN Red List status of the red panda?
4. True or false: the red panda is a small kind of giant panda.
5. Name one reason scientists give for the giant panda's black and white coat.

Answer key

1. Bamboo.
2. Vulnerable (2016 assessment).
3. Endangered (2015 assessment).
4. False. The red panda is the only living member of its own family, Ailuridae. See the red panda guide.
5. Caro and colleagues (2017) suggest the white areas help with camouflage against snow and the dark ears and eye patches help with communication.

Vocabulary list

Bamboo, habitat, herbivore, carnivore, pseudo thumb, Ailuridae, conservation, endangered, vulnerable, umbrella species. Kid friendly definitions are in the panda glossary.

Classroom activities

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