TITLE: Animal Survival AUTHOR: Jeffrey Kimber, McGill Elem., Ely, NV GRADE LEVEL/SUBJECT: 2-4, science OVERVIEW: All children love animals but often do not understand why, in the course of nature, they must die to allow others to survive. PURPOSE: The purpose of this lesson is to demonstrate to the class that it is not cruel or unfair when animals die. It is only natural that the strongest of each species survive while the weak perish. OBJECTIVES: The students will demonstrate an understanding of why some animal perish while others survive. This will be evaluated through classroom discussion and a simple quiz. RESOURCES/MATERIALS: handkerchiefs for blindfolds, scarves for tying up a broken leg, and chips or markers to be used for food, video - "The Lions of Africa." ACTIVITIES AND PROCEDURES: This lesson is designed as more of a game than a sit down experiment. The children become the animals for the lesson. Any animal can be chosen as long as the children are all the same animal. The object of the game is survival. To survive, each child must gather enough food chips to live. Those who don't will perish. To make the lesson effective, not all of the children can be healthy animal. This should be explained to the children that in nature, not all animals are healthy. Some of the children should be blindfolded to make them blind. Others should have other disabilities such as a broken leg which cannot be used, a broken back which halts the use of both back legs, etc. It aids in the children's understanding if the teacher tells the students how the animal got his disability using real life situations. The actual game begins with spreading the food chips around the floor of the classroom. All of the animal start in one particular spot. When the teacher tells the children to start, they crawl around the room gathering as many food chips as they can in the time allotted. This time allowed will depend on the size of the class. When time is called, the animals step gathering and return to their seats. The teacher then writes on the board how much food they needed to survive and for how long. For example, a deer that gathered 30 food chips is healthy for the next year, whereas a deer who gathered 20 food chips may be healthy for only six months. A deer who only gathered 10 food chips or less will probably only live for another two or three months. This part of the lesson is followed by classroom discussion of what happened to the deer in our forest. The children will note which deer were the first to perish, usually the lame deer or the very old or sick. With some teacher assistance, the children will internalize the activity to relate to when their cat had kittens and one died, etc. This is a good lesson for those classrooms which have a class pet who has died also. TYING IT ALL TOGETHER: After classroom discussion, a good culminating activity is to show the video "The Lions of Africa." It discusses a pride of lions surviving a drought in Africa and what becomes of them. It is a very factual and sometimes graphic video and should be previewed by the teacher for lower elementary grades.
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John Kurilecjmk@ofcn.org