Back to School Activities - Middle or High School - Survival Activities BUNDLE

Headed back to school and looking for an engaging activity?! These back to school activities are perfect for the first day - or any day! Will your students survive being Lost in the Amazon? Could they lead a successful expedition to the North Pole? Will they choose the correct items to survive a Zombie Apocalypse? These are THE back to school activities that middle school and high school students LOVE. These are FUN, collaborative, problem solving, unique activities that even adults enjoy. All activities are based on researched articles. Each activity has a different method of survival. These are the back to school activities students go home and tell their parents about!

Recommended use:

✈️Back to school: Amazon Rainforest Survival

This is a class favorite activity, every year. This is the BEST back to school activity, EVER. You start by reading a dramatic story to the class. In this case, students are aboard a chartered jet plane that's flying over the Amazon Rainforest. Trouble strikes, and students will be forced to make decisions about which items THEY believe will help them survive in a dangerous trek through the Amazon.

A great, low pressure, everyone has an opinion, no-one has any actual experience, everyone thinks they're right, activity. Then you'll go through a PowerPoint Presentation that explains the rankings and points for various items. All rankings are the result of research.

How long will your students survive? Who will lead the trek? Who should just stay home?

THIS is the activity kids will go home from school talking about. THIS is the activity that gets mentioned at the dinner table. THIS is the activity that brings excited kids back to class the next day.

❄️Before winter break: Arctic Survival

Welcome to the Arctic Survival Expedition! I have completely re-done the formatting on this before winter break activity. (Old format still included for those who prefer it). My students LOVE my survival scenarios. They are research based, low pressure, unlike any other school activity, reminiscent of magazine quizzes from the 90s. Even more, they are still learning! Students will enjoy discussing, sharing, and arguing their choices (if you decide to let them).

Here is how this particular activity works:

• Give each student (or partnership - if you want them to discuss and agree on answers) a student answer recording sheet (included)
• Read to the class the story/questions about the trek to the North Pole (included)
• Students record their answers to each question on the sheet you provided them
• Click through the PowerPoint (included) - it provides a review of the questions, answers, explanations, and gives directions to students on when to cross out a "life"
• On the last slide - students will reveal if they are leading, helping to lead, surviving, holding back the group, or shouldn't go on the arctic trek.

Why my students LOVE these activities:

• Low pressure
• Everyone is included
• Change of pace
• Research based
• No-one has any experience - so it's a level playing field

Why I LOVE these activities:

• Gives you a different outlook on students
• It's fun and relatable - while still being educational
• It's fun to see how students think and use critical thinking skills
• Change of pace
• SUPER low prep - copy student page (one page), print 2 teacher pages, bring up PowerPoint
• You can leave this with a sub

When could I use this?

• I like to use these the day before a break!
• Really, you could use this any day.
• You can use this with ANY age, in ANY class.

How long does this take?

• On average, 20-25 minutes
• You can smoosh it into 15 minutes if needed
• If you want to extend the activity, you can have students discuss or share and defend their answers, or debate. You can also take a poll before going over answers. At the end, you can make a list on the board of who led the class, who helped, etc. You could also find an arctic video to follow up with.

☢End of the school year: Zombie Apocalypse

Looking for that one of a kind, secondary level, team building, ice breaker, collaborative, fun, the class is going to LOOOOVE this activity? You found it!

Everything you need is in this pack. Directions for prep and set up, story line, location signs and cards, item cards, and presentation of item rankings included. And not just random- nilly dilly rankings- I researched four articles and made a compilation list based on each items' rank in each of the four articles. You won't find anything else like this.

Set up location signs (with item cards) around your room (6 locations). Begin reading dramatic story. Within the story, directions are given to students to flip over their location card, go to location, choose two items, and then move on. Students will be able to visit two other locations before leaving town forever with a maximum of four items. Their goal: long term survival in the wilderness during the Zombie Apocalypse.

This activity takes approximately 25-35 minutes.

Head Back to School with the coolest activities EVER!!

SEE WHAT TEACHERS LIKE YOU ARE SAYING!

"My administrator walked in while I was using the Survival in the Amazon Rainforest lesson. She LOVED how students were using critical thinking skills right at the beginning of the school year. I told my students how I also have the Zombie Apocalypse one that we will do around Halloween and they are SO excited!"

Abigail R.

"I used the Amazon Survival with my environmental science class and the Zombie Apocalypse Survive with my chemistry students as week one activities. It was easy to set up, fun to do, and offered interesting conversations afterward to make connections between the activity and subject! All students were eager to share their choices, great for involving all students." Lea P.

"I have only used the rainforest one so far. Not only did they enjoy the project I let them then debate on why certain items should be placed higher or lower on the scoring. So it turned into a persuasive speaking activity as well. " Lynne H.

"... I had a really good response from every class. I teach 7 to 12 grade and the older they get, they seem to be more hesitant to speak out during class. This was a good way to get a conversation going where every student had equal contribution. We spoke after about the importance of sharing during class, using critical thinking skills, and disagreeing in a constructive manner. These conversations would have been impossible without good prompt like this. " Samantha H.

Enjoy teaching again!

CrazyScienceLady