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oYou may repeat this Pair‐Share process as many times as you would like to, having studentsfind a new partner every time, but always talking from the perspectives of their selectedanimals and zoo staff persons. If you have the time and students are engaging in the activity,you may choose to repeat the process in order to talk about each body system.3. Teacher Assessment (Approximate time: 10 minutes, mostly completed while students areworking)o While students are engaging in the Reflection Activities, add notes to your teacherassessment chart (see Appendix) to record students’ conceptual understanding of thestructure, function and health of body systems in humans and animals.Extension Learning: Loan LibrariesConsider utilizing one of these unique opportunities from Denver Zoo either before or after your fieldtrip to provide your students with an enhanced learning experience.Loan LibrariesLoan libraries contain incredible unit‐specific children’s literature and nonfiction books. Theseresources can be reserved for up to two weeks. They must be reserved in advance and require a$25 refundable deposit. You may pick up your loan library at the zoo or have it shipped to yourschool for an additional fee. For detailed information on a loan library that specifically relates to thisunit, as well as information about how to reserve this resource, visit our website (see Appendix). It isbest to reserve loan libraries as early as possible.Final Project and Presentation: Healthy Human, Healthy Animal (illustrated bookor digital creation)Objectives Students write a story from the point of view of a zoo staff person about maintaining healthybody systems of themselves and of an animal from Toyota Elephant Passage. Students turn their stories into an illustrated book or digital creation (digital book, presentationor video) based on your parameters and the resources available to you. Students will present their books to other classes, older or younger “buddies” and/or theirfriends and families. The final project serves as a summative assessment for the teachers about the students’ gains inknowledge and skills, as well as changes in attitudes or feelings, as a result of the curriculum.Colorado Academic StandardsScience: 2.1, 2.2Reading, Writing and Communicating: 1.1, 1.2, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 4.1, 4.2Visual Arts: 2.2, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3Materials NeededPaper and pencils; class charts from the Before‐Visit Activities; research resources; markers, coloredpencils, construction paper, glue, other craft materials for creating illustrations; computers to type on,use for research and look for images (ideal but not required)21
Activities1. Explain (Approximate time: 5 minutes)o Inform students that they will be writing their stories from the point of view of the zoo staffperson they selected (zookeeper, veterinarian, exhibit designer, educator, or volunteer). Thestudents will use the charts and research that the class created before the trip as well as theobservations they made during their field trip. Encourage students to check the accuracy oftheir peers’ research and consider the reliability of the source of the information as they arewriting their own stories. The stories should be rooted in the facts they collected frominformational texts and at‐the‐zoo observations, but students are encouraged to use theirimagination and creativity to create a fictional story using these facts. Ask them if they canthink of any books that use this strategy.o Students may use the real names of individual animals in Toyota Elephant Passage or theycan make up new names for their characters.2. Create Story Rough Drafts (Approximate time: multiple hours)o Provide students with ideas/prompts for sections of their stories, and ask them to create arough draft of their story. Explain that this will be a rough draft, but after they are satisfiedwith their story, they will create a neater, more formal final draft in the form of anillustrated book or digital creation.• You may choose to use daily writing prompts to pose different questions to helpstudents develop their stories during regularly scheduled class writing time.o Below in bold are possible story prompts that could be used to create outlines and roughdrafts. In italics are short examples.• An acrostic poem about their animal. (Written by Jessica, a zookeeper, about Vinh,a northern white‐cheeked gibbon) Vinh is very acrobatic; she brachiates overhead, swinging across the vines. Islands offer leaves for her to eat and places for her to walk. Now she grooms her partner Jing‐Chi. He is quite shy, but she helps her playmate be more adventurous.• Information about the zoo staff person and introduction to story. (I am Jessica. Ihave been a zookeeper at Denver Zoo for 9 years. I primarily work with primates likethe northern white‐cheeked gibbons. As we are primates too, it is amazing to look atsimilarities and differences between humans and these furry “lesser apes.” Today Iam going to share with you how my body systems are similar and different fromVinh, my favorite animal in Toyota Elephant Passage. I will also share with you thesimilar and different things we do to keep our systems healthy.)• Information about the animal. (This is Vinh, a 22‐year‐old female northern whitecheekedgibbon who moved to Denver Zoo last year…)• A story comparing and contrasting the body systems and healthy maintenance ofthose systems of the human zoo staff person and the featured animal. The humancan narrate the story, or the human and the animal can take turns “talking” abouttheir body systems and ways they keep those systems healthy. Students might create their stories using a very structured format toaddress each body system as in the example below.1) Description of human body system (e.g., human’s skeletal system);2) Comparative description of animal body system (e.g., animal’sskeletal system);22
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