Habitats at Home

Explore our Amazing Local Habitats

The patchwork of landscapes stretching across the island of Ireland offer a range of interesting and unique habitats which host fascinating wildlife and shelters. Join your Marble Arch Caves education guide as they take you on a journey across the country, exploring different habitats, from vast rolling hills to the smallest nooks and crannies where wildlife flourishes.

Delve into nature as we investigate the connections found in our local ecosystems, as plants and native animals live in balance in food chains. Learn about their remarkable adaptations such as camouflage, developed through thousands of years of evolution, and the importance of conservation and maintaining natural habitats to protect local species. Explore our local ecosystems and understand the interconnections between people, place and environment.

Programme Title: Habitats at Home

• Level: KS2 & ROI Equivalent
• Connected themes: The world around us, place, conservation, positive and negative consequences of human action.
• Core themes/Subjects Covered: Biology, Geography, Geology the natural world and sustainability

Learning Outcomes

• Know that an animal’s home is called its habitat and that there are many different types of habitats on Earth.
• Understand that habitats contain food, water, shelter, different conditions, other animals and predators and prey.
• Understand that animals have evolved adaptations to fit a particular ‘niche’ within their habitat.
• Know these adaptations can be in an animal’s size, shape or behaviour.
• Be able to identify a selection of native Irish mammals.

More Information

Marble Arch Caves can travel to schools/education groups within a 1hour driving distance from the Marble Arch Caves Visitor Centre (or 50-mile radius). If your venue is beyond this radius please contact us. Sessions can be delivered in a range of indoor settings including classrooms, halls, conference rooms etc. as long as they have access to a SMARTboard or projector. Elements of our outreach sessions are delivered using PowerPoint presentations as teaching aids. therefore staff will have laptops which we will connect via HDMI cables. We kindly ask that venues have suitable space for our team to move around and interact with students.

We aim to make our outreach sessions as accessible as possible for all students. If you have questions about what our outreach sessions entail, and whether they are suited to your group, please don’t hesitate to get in touch and our staff will be happy to chat through the course programme in more detail. Where possible, we will adapt/tailor sessions to meet your requirements.