Workshop 4: Animals
Information for teachers
Students will discover why protecting animals is important by exploring environmental, economic and social sustainability through interactive games, teamwork and hands-on challenges.
Environmental Sustainability: Matchmaker
Hosted by a charismatic and cheeky host, students are grouped as contestants on a game show, exploring the MRS GREN life processes of reproduction and growth. They discover how different species have evolved unique strategies to survive and pass life on to the next generation, while competing in a series of interactive challenges to become the Matchmaker champions.
Students will:
- Meet four iconic native animals important to Aotearoa’s biodiversity, each with unique reproduction and growth strategies.
- Explore how different environments have shaped the reproduction and growth adaptations of these native animals.
- Complete four interactive challenges to earn points and become the Matchmaker champions.
Economic Sustainability: Amazing Animals
Students take part in an amazing scavenger hunt adventure, completing five hands-on challenges that explore how maintaining healthy ecosystems and strong communities support thriving economies.
Students will:
- Students will explore how healthy habitats, biodiversity, and food chains are essential for healthy industries and communities.
- Students will recognise that living things, people, and businesses are all connected, that changes to one species can create ripple effects throughout ecosystems and the economy.
- Make business decisions that balance profit with caring for the environment and the future
Social Sustainability: The Election
Students take on the role of political advisors during an election campaign, helping one of four candidates prepare for a debate about the future of New Zealand's animals and biodiversity. Working in teams, they develop arguments, respond to challenging questions, and persuade voters while exploring the environmental, economic, and social trade-offs involved in protecting nature.
Students will:
- Work as political advisors to prepare one of four election candidates for a debate on protecting animals and biodiversity.
- Develop rebuttals for arguments and participate in debates
- Cast their vote after considering the environmental, economic, and social trade-offs of each candidate's plan.
Throughout the day, students earn wooden tokens through teamwork, problem-solving and participation.
By the end of the workshop, they will have created a unique wooden keepsake as a reminder of the sustainability commitments they will make at the end of this workshop.