Students design zoo or safari park enclosures for animals, reflecting the animal's natural habitat, as well as its air, water, food, shelter, and activity needs.
Many students have visited a zoo or an aquarium. What was their favorite exhibit? Why? What specific features made it memorable?
Show students pictures different animals in their natural habitat and ask them to describe what they see. Then, let the students know the class will design an entire park with enclosures for a specific animal.
Have teams begin by researching their chosen or assigned animal. Teams should be encouraged to become an expert on this animal, its unique characteristics, and needs.
Provide a graphic organizer, like a cluster, to help them take notes.
Assign the Zoo Exhibit Design template asks students to help students focus efforts on describing the animals, plants, and other features of the exhibit. In this template, students design a map of the exhibit as a visual preview of what the enclosure will look like for visitors.
Teams should be ready to showcase their expertise and demonstrate how their enclosure reflects the animals original habitat and is uniquely suited to helping their animal thrive.
Print necessary designs and information, and develop a map for the entire park, showing the location of each enclosure. Host an event where families, community members, and local zoologists, park rangers, and veterinarians can talk with student experts and tour the proposed designs.
Jackie Glassman & Lisa Bonforte. Amazing Arctic Animals (Penguin Young Readers, L3). ISBN: 044842844X
Molly Aloian & Bobbie Kalman. The Arctic Habitat (Introducing Habitats). ISBN: 0778729818
Barbara Taylor. DK Eyewitness Books: Arctic and Antarctic. ISBN: 0756690714
2-LS4-1 Make observations of plants and animals to compare the diversity of life in different habitats.
3-LS4-3 Construct an argument with evidence that in a particular habitat some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.