Grade Levels: 6-8, 9-12

*Click to open and customize your own copy of the Jane Goodall Lesson Plan.

This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Jane Goodall, and supports the standard of analyzing individuals’ contributions to scientific progress. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Ask students:

  • What is a question you have about nature or science? How would you go about researching answers to your question?

Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE

  • Read the description on the Jane Goodall topic page.
  • Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding. 
  • Have students read one of the following Related Reading articles: “Arts and Entertainment” or “Careers”. Partner them with someone who read a different article to share what they learned with each other.

Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS 

Students take the Jane Goodall Challenge and Quiz, applying essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.

Step 4: DEEPEN and EXTEND

Students express what they learned about Jane Goodall while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs. 

  • Make-a-Movie: Imagine you are helping Goodall to observe chimpanzees in the wild. Make a video journal that answers this question: What are your observations about their behavior and way of life?
  • Make-a-Map: Create a timeline of events from Goodall’s career as a primatologist. 
  • Creative Coding: Code a newscast that features one of Goodall’s discoveries about chimpanzees. 
  • Primary Source Activity: Examine and compare 2001 video footage to Goodall’s original field notes from 1960.

More to Explore

Time Zone X: Jane Goodall: Play an interactive timeline game challenging students to put historical events in chronological order.

Famous Scientists Unit: Continue to build understanding around individuals’ contributions to society by exploring more BrainPOP biographies.

Teacher Support Resources:

Lesson Plan Common Core State Standards Alignments