Ecosystem Resilience Guide for Youth

The Smithsonian Science Education Center, in collaboration with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP), has developed Ecosystem Resilience! How can people and ecosystems build resilience to change? The new community research guide for youth ages 11 – 18 is underpinned by the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and highlights strategies for local adaptation to global impacts of ecosystem resilience around topics like pollution, deforestation, and climate change. As part of the Smithsonian Science for Global Goals project, Ecosystem Resilience! is the thirteenth freely available guide. It encourages youth to explore resilience concepts such as biodiversity, connectivity, ecosystem-based adaptation, and biomimicry, applying them both to specific ecosystems and to human communities. As students take on the role of action researchers, they gather data about their communities and evaluate potential nature-based solutions for their own resilience and the resilience of the ecosystem around them. ssec.si.edu