Twycross Zoo The Official Website

· Duration 30 minutes (unless specially arranged with the education department)

· As of 1st January 2006, price per group will be £15. (Group maximum 30). This does not include your entry to the zoo.

· Sessions relate to N.C. Key Stages 1 and 2

How to book:
All bookings must be made through the main office. Please have the following details at hand when booking a talk: Name of school/group, contact name and phone number, age of pupils, number of pupils and topic required.

Topic List

ANIMAL ENCOUNTER:
Especially suitable for all Key Stage 1 children. This session gives children a chance to meet and interact with many of the educational animals. During the session children are encouraged to think about the animal, where it comes from and other special features.

ANIMAL ADAPTATIONS:
How are animals adapted to their environment? This session teaches about how animals are suited to where they live. How do they cope with the weather? How do they find food? What do they do if they can not find food? How do they escape their predators? All of these and more questions are answered in this session with the help of the educational animals.

ANIMAL HABITATS:
What is an animal habitat? What kind of habitats do animals live in? This session shows pupils which types of animals inhabit different types of habitat. The educational animals give real life examples of life from mountain tops, deserts, grasslands and rainforests.

RAINFOREST EXPLORER:
This habitat forms a popular part of the curriculum. There are many animals that come from rainforests around the zoo but only during our session can you get up close and personal to a few of them. This gives an overview of the rainforest or can build upon information already learnt at school. A variety of education animals show children what life is like high up in the emergent layer and canopy and what it is like deep down on the dark forest floor.

A COLOURFUL WORLD:
Animals come in many different forms and many different patterns and colour. This session explores how colour is used in nature and why there is such a variety in animal skins and colouration.

A WORLD OF ANIMALS - CLASSIFICATION:
How do we make sense of over 1 million animal species? This uses live animals to explore the world of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, fish and invertebrates. This explores how they reproduce, grow and look after their young. A fantastic session to introduce your pupils to the animal kingdom and the variation within it.

ANIMAL SENSES:
Animals see, hear and feel in many different ways. Some animals are similar to us and others could not be more different. This session takes children into another animal’s world and explores what experiences would be like for them.

WHO EATS WHOM AND HOW!?:
Food, feeding and food chains are popular areas of the National Curriculum. Here pupils learn about what types of food animals eat and how they are suited to eating it. Skulls are used to demonstrate different teeth formations and live animals give pupils a close up view of a herbivore, a carnivore (insectivore) and an omnivore. They are also introduced to food chains and how ecosystems link together.

CONSERVATION AND ENDANGERED ANIMALS:
‘The Wild’ is a very fragile place with more of it disappearing everyday. Children will learn about habitat destruction, pollution, hunting, the illegal pet trade and how they are affecting the animals left in the wild. They also examine a zoo’s role in the world today and what it will be in the future.

ANIMAL CARE:
How do we look after our animals? What do we feed them? These questions and more are answered as we encourage children to think about our responsibilities to the animals we keep in the zoos and as pets at home.

THE FUTURE IS WILD!:
This brand new workshop combines resources at Twycross Zoo and the successful TV programme ‘The Future Is Wild’ (shown on BBC2). This workshop combines classroom teaching, interaction with live animals and worksheets to allow the children to explore the theories of evolution and climate change. Only suitable for KS2 and above.

And there’s more! Twycross Zoo can also offer you:

· FREE preliminary visits for teachers (just phone for an appointment)
· Talks tailored to your course/syllabus
· Entrance discounts for students accompanied by a teacher
· All facilities accessible by wheelchair
· Hands-on specimens for booked sessions
· A variety of support material for more information
click here