The Future is Wild was a TV programme looking at what could happen millions of years in the future as animals and environment adapt to climate change. There is a web site full of information and educational activities at http://www.thefutureiswild.com/index.asp?level1id=1 As well as the factual information on which this is based, which can form the basis of some lessons, there is also scope for creative work. For example, students in groups could be given a description of an environment and they could each create an animal suitable for that environment and create their own Inspiration diagram. They could be given information about some of the amazing ways in which animals do exist from day to day, animals that may already have become extinct to inspire their creations.
There will be other Inspiration diagrams for the other time periods (100 million years and 200 million years in the future) and I intend to create an Inspire Data database of the creatures. Students could add details about their creatures to such a database or just use the information already there.
The InspireData database of animals has now been uploaded - it contains all the animals detailed for the three times - 5 million, 100 million and 200 million years in teh future.