Wild Horse and Burro Teaching Resources
Introduction to the Wild Horse and Burro K-12 Curriculum
This curriculum was developed by researchers at Colorado State University, funded by a grant from the United States Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The purpose of this website is to bring rangelands and wild horses and burros into a curriculum that is freely available to everyone. We use scientific research to bring knowledge to teachers and their students from Kindergarten to Grade 12 (and beyond!), both in formal school environments and in homeschools. Our hope is that children everywhere will learn about the beauty and importance of rangelands, and understand the complex interface between people, ecosystems, and the wild horses and burros managed by BLM.
Many people participated in the creation of this curriculum, and even more conducted the research that we rely on to tell the story of wild horses and burros on our rangeland landscapes. We would like to recognize the contributions of our illustrator, Carrie van Horn, who joined us on field trips to landscapes and horses so she could represent these places accurately… and beautifully! We are so grateful for everyone’s contributions.
Content of the Curriculum
Within each module, the order of Sub-Modules, Units, and Topical Lesson Plans is deliberately planned in learning progressions, with each module building on the previous material. It is possible to teach the entire curriculum in this progressive manner, which would inform your students about every angle related to wild horses and burros. However, it is also possible to teach a single complete Module, a single complete Sub-Module, a single complete Unit, or even just one lesson. Thus, we provide resources to inform you of the critical underpinnings/science/facts you need to know to teach segments of the curriculum in a way that is disconnected from previous content.
We created this curriculum to reach teachers practicing and teaching a diversity of subjects, from science, math, history, and art, and so on. We hope that teachers of many subjects will take advantage of this resource.
Each Topical Lesson Plan includes background material, a list of Next Generation Science Standards (used because of their broad applicability across the United States), an approximate teaching timeline, one or more activities, and links to resources we collected from many trustworthy sources, as well as resources we created ourselves. The content is flexible, and activities can be adapted as necessary to meet the needs of students. However, we encourage teachers to read the background material and familiarize themselves with our four Case Studies. This will help them understand the places and issues surrounding wild horses and burros, ensuring that students do not receive misunderstood or incorrect information.
We hope you enjoy learning from our curriculum and welcome your feedback at any time! Also note that we may add to the curriculum over time, but we anticipate that the overarching structure will remain the same. We will check external links one time per year.
Structure of the Curriculum
The curriculum is designed to reach students at four levels: Level 1 is early elementary, Grades K-2; Level 2 is late elementary, Grades 3-5; Level 3 is middle school, Grades 6-8; and Level 4 is high school, Grades 9-12. We organized the curriculum by level to make it easy for teachers to find lessons at a level appropriate for their classroom. Teachers may use lessons of any level they wish to customize to the capabilities of their students. Each level has its own page that can be reached by clicking the appropriate tile below.
Within each level you will find five Content Modules: Systems Thinking Rangelands and Rangeland Ecosystems, Wild Horse and Burro History in the US West, Wild Horse and Burro Biology, Wild Horse and Burro Behavior, and Wild Horse and Burro Management. By entering any of these Modules, you will find Sub-Modules of various topical themes that represent the material related to the Module. Upon entering a Sub-Module, you will find a list of Units, each of which will include a series of Topical Lesson Plans in downloadable and printable pdf format to be used for learning and teaching about wild horses and burros. This structure is designed to present material in a way that progresses from foundations (Module 1: Systems Thinking and Rangeland Ecosystems) through more complex topics and applications (Module 5: Wild Horse and Burro Management).