Over 50,000 Teachers Have Downloaded The Racing Extinction Curriculum

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Leilani Münter has shared with teachers and those of us who know teachers that Racing Extinction is now available to students for a virtual screening free of charge — along with lesson plans for all K-12 teachers worldwide. Münter also shared that, so far, over 50,000 teachers have downloaded Racing Extinction‘s curriculum and have engaged over 2.3 million students. 

In her Twitter thread, Münter shared that well before the television premiere of Racing Extinction, which was five years ago, she drove 006, the Ocean Preservation Society’s mobile projection vehicle, back to the Tesla factory in California, where the vehicle, a Tesla Model S, was originally designed in 2013.

She drove through the factory and gave some lucky Tesla employees rides to thank them for their hard work at moving the world in the direction of sustainable transportation. On the back of the car, there is a 15,000-lumen projector, and in the front, a FLIR camera that enables the average person to see what both carbon dioxide and methane look like in the air we breathe — it makes the gases visible to the naked eye. 

“006 was the first fully vegan P85+ Model S to come out of the factory. IMHO, she’s the coolest Model S on the planet,” Münter shared in her thread.

Before the television premiere of @RacingXtinction five years ago, I drove 006 — the @OP_Society mobile projection vehicle — back to the @Tesla factory in CA where she was born in 2013. 1/ pic.twitter.com/V6u4x0DSye

— Leilani Münter (@LeilaniMunter) December 3, 2020

Over 50,000 teachers have already downloaded the Racing Extinction curriculum engaging over 2.3 million students! #StartWith1Thing

— Leilani Münter (@LeilaniMunter) December 3, 2020

How To Get The Racing Extinction Lesson Plans

For those who want to watch the film, it is available on iTunes, Amazon, and Google. The lesson plans, available here, provide interactive lessons that engage students on the importance of biodiversity on our planet. Discovery Education and Vulcan Productions also joined in to help create the lessons, which include video clips from the documentary, Racing Extinction, while generating excitement and enthusiasm in the classroom. 

Also available at the link above is a form for teachers to fill out if they would like to host a screening as well as downloadable classroom posters. 

Not A Teacher? Here’s How You Can Help

Awareness is always fundamental, and Racing Extinction’s website has several ways you can take part in spreading awareness — from education about where your food comes from, to its campaign “Protect The Endangered Species Act,” which is the last line of defense to keep wildlife that is on the brink of extinction from going extinct. This campaign is critical due to the fact that our current administration and many members of Congress no longer see science as important — they have either been dismantling environmental protection laws or creating bills that would slash the Endangered Species Act. 

“Members of Congress are disregarding science and proposing bills to slash the Endangered Species Act, threatening the existence of the imperiled wildlife the act protects.” — Racing Extinction.

In 2019, the Trump administration weakened the application of the Endangered Species Act and ordered changes that help speed up the loss of animals and plants — which is insane especially since there have been massive global extinctions already. The protections that have been targeted by Trump include water, air, and public lands.

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New Species Of Shark Discovered — May Already Be Extinct

A new shark species that scientists have just discovered could already be lost — extinct. This “lost shark” was in the heavily fished South China Sea and was only just discovered last year. So far, there have been no sightings and it hasn’t shown up in surveys, which prompted the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to list it as critically endangered and possibly extinct.

Will White, an ichthyologist at the Australian National Fish Collection, noted that this could be the first shark extinction in human times. “Unfortunately, what makes a species a great survivor in the natural world doesn’t equate to making them great survivors against man,” he said.

Simon Walmsley, chief marine advisor at WWF-UK, shared his thoughts on how alarming this decline in sharks and rays is. We’ve been witnessing the alarming decline in sharks and rays for the last two decades, and yet the unsustainable fishing of these crucial species has continued unabated.” He added that, “These animals have evolved over 400 million years, and sadly we’re now pushing them to the brink of extinction.”

The rays Walmsley mentioned were in reference to the inclusion of stingrays in the 316 species of shark, rays, skates, and chimeras that are included in the Red List of species in trouble. There are a total of 128,918 animal, plant, and fungi species that are assessed by the IUCN, and over a quarter are threatened with extinction.

The IUCN, which is typically conservative on extinctions, often uses the term “possibly extinct” because declaring a species extinct could end any remaining protection efforts — so, in most cases, many species that are listed as “possibly extinct,” are most likely extinct. The IUCN recently listed an Amazon dolphin with a pink-tinted belly, the tucuxi, to its endangered species list. The tucuxi is being killed by dams, pollution, and gill nets, which are vast curtains of fishing nets that dangle in the river’s currents.