World Animal Day this year saw PORG International School at ZOO Ostrava. Now, World Animal Day is all over the internet but the sun was shining and there will be plenty of time for indoor learning during winter. Besides, if you want to see the world’s animals in a day then ZOO Ostrava is a good place to start!
We had plenty of activities for Key Stages 1 and 2, with things for them to find out and learn as we went. There was a quiz competition planned for the next day, so plenty of incentive to get the answers.
World Animal Day’s theme for us was conservation. As part of a year-long project based on our ecosystem, we learned how zoos have taken a leading role in preserving species from extinction.
We saw how some animals have been put back into their natural environment in a re-wilding process. In many areas, human activities had altered the natural balance of the eco-system. Removing one species so that we could farm the land or keep our domesticated animals safe often led to other species dying out.
Now, scientific research is teaching us more about the myriad tiny interactions which keep nature’s balance. We learned that returning a species to an area where our activities had driven it away can return the balance and encourage the return of all the other species which had died out because of us.
World Animal Day gave us a framework to build the rest of our eco-systems project around. Whatever we have lessons on in our curriculum, we are aiming to help the children become well-rounded citizens. It was fantastic to see that every subject we study is actually useful in real life and, in this case, how they have been used protect and preserve animals.
