Assign this text to deeply engage your students!

Actively Learn provides free ELA, science, and social studies digital content—short stories, primary sources, textbook sections, science articles, novels, videos, and more—and embeds them with assignments aligned to standards for all 50 states that you can assign immediately or customize for your students.

Whether you’re looking for “The Tell-Tale Heart,” The Hate U Give, “The Gettysburg Address,” or current science articles and simulations, Actively Learn is the free go-to source to help you guide your students' growth in critical thinking all year.

Teaching Last of the giants: What killed off Madagascar's megafauna a thousand years ago?

Last of the giants: What killed off Madagascar's megafauna a thousand years ago?

Imagine a giant 10-foot-tall elephant bird with eggs bigger than those of an ostrich! Or a sloth lemur that is bigger than a panda. Or a puma-like animal called a giant fosa.\nThese creatures sound like they’ve come from a fantasy book. Yet they, along with dozens of other types of animals, once lived on the island of Madagascar in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Then, after millions of years of evolution, most died out over just a couple of hundred years. Eventually, these giant creatures became extinct.

Nick Scroxton, Postdoctoral Research Scholar in Paleoclimatology, Laurie Godfrey Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, Stephen Burns, Professor of Geosciences; University of Massachusetts Amherst
The Conversation

ESSENTIAL QUESTION:

How did humans affect the megafauna of Madagascar?
STANDARDS:
RH.1 - Meaning & Evidence, RH.2 - Main Ideas

DEPTH OF KNOWLEDGE (DOK) LEVELS:

2,3
Assign this text to your students for free!