March 28, 2025
Winter 2025 Environmental Education Polar Bear Program
This winter we launched our polar bear program in schools for kindergarten to grade 6 students. From January to March 2025, we taught 629 students, in 57 programs, at 13 schools, to explore the beauty of the Arctic ecosystem.
We connected to students through various activities including, “Dress like a Polar Bear,” “Polar Bear Freeze,” “Arctic Camouflage Scavenger Hunt,” and “Food Chain Pyramid.” We launched the polar bear program to connect students to these amazing marine mammals, the importance of conservation, and using their voices and actions to make a difference in our province.
Education and Conservation
The reality of life for polar bears and the threat of climate change to their feeding patterns is often overlooked in teaching about the Arctic ecosystem and we wanted to ensure that students were educated on the role of sea ice in Arctic life. In addition, the Arctic ecosystem is one of the most fragile ecosystems in the world, with physical conditions changing faster than animals can adapt to them. By engaging students in learning about these issues, we work to further conservation efforts in the North and help provide greater stability for the creatures in this ecosystem.
“I’m so thrilled with the success of this program! It was our first time ever offering it and I was consistently amazed with how well students engaged with the activities and content. They loved it, I loved it, teaching it was always such a blast!” said program facilitator Kate Heide.
Activities
Dress Like a Polar Bear
Activity: With students in grades 1-3, we discussed polar bear adaptations by taking a look at the clothing we wear outside during winter and comparing it to polar bears. We discussed how our boots keep our feet warm while providing us a grip on the ice and snow, similar to how polar bear paws padding helps them run and hunt on sea ice. We also compared how layering helps us stay warm and hats serve the same purpose as the super small ears on polar bears.
Learning Outcome: This activity helps reinforce how students should be dressing in freezing temperatures. By comparing clothing to polar bear adaptations, students learn how polar bears survive in their environment while ensuring students understand the importance of proper winter wear.
Polar Bear Freeze
Activity: In this take on “Red Light Green Light” students pretend to be polar bears and try to sneak up on a classmate pretending to be a seal. If a polar bear is spotted by the seal they must start back at the beginning and try to catch it again.
Learning Outcome: To begin this activity we discuss polar bear diets and the logistics of hunting for seals on sea ice. Polar Bears are stealthy hunters and catching seals is no easy feat as students learn. We follow up the game by discussing the consequences of climate change on sea ice and polar bear activity. The loss of sea ice is a huge threat to bears and pushes them further into land to find food, causing more frequent interactions with humans.
Arctic Camouflage Scavenger Hunt
Activity: Students explore their schoolyard to locate pictures of 12 different arctic animals. The animals are camouflaged based on their colour and students are provided a sheet that shows the illustrations of all the animals.
Learning Outcome: Students experience first hand the importance of camouflage to animal survival. We compare arctic fox and snowshoe hare coats in the winter and summer time and discuss why they camouflage: to either escape predators or catch prey.
Food Chain Pyramid
Activity: Students are given 1 of 15 buckets with a variety of arctic organisms pictures on them. Together, we discuss different trophic levels and stack the buckets in a pyramid. We then discuss what may happen if the polar bear is removed from the top of the pyramid, prompting a discussion on ecosystem balance. We then demonstrate the importance of all organisms in an ecosystem by removing a plant from the bottom row, causing the pyramid to collapse.
Learning Outcome: Students engage in building the pyramid and critically think about which organisms consume others to survive. We then discuss trophic levels and the importance of these levels to the function of an ecosystem. We finish up by discussing the importance of all organisms to an ecosystem and use the collapse of the pyramid to illustrate the effects of species extinction on the rest of an ecosystem.
With students in grades 4-6, we use the pyramid to illustrate how toxins multiply their way up a food web, accumulating in the bodies of all organisms in the ecosystem, not only those directly in contact with toxins.
Program Bookings
More than 25,000 children and students were connected to nature through 1,284 CPAWS Manitoba outdoor education programs from May 2021 to March 2025.Learn more about CPAWS Manitoba’s environmental education programming.
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