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Curriculum Connections
Connecting
Your Safari to the Curriculum: Science
Here's a fun activity you can do after your class has gone on Safari! Divide your students into teams and assign each team
an animal. Their job: to research the animals for scientific information,
fascinating statistics and fun facts. Use library books, the Internet,
encyclopedias and other classroom resources. Have them make a list
of ten items from the information they gather and make a chart or
a report. The list can also make a good starting point for writing
their own animal poems (see Writing Your
Own Safari Poems).
Science Connection: Many of the poems that recount traditional
African stories explain how an animal became the way it is (why
zebras have stripes, how lions got their roar, etc.) (see Connecting
Your Safari to the Curriculum: Traditional African Stories).
Of course these stories are fiction, so take the opportunity to
compare fact and fiction, myth and science. What are the scientific/survival
functions of the characteristics and behaviors of the animals featured
in the how/why stories? What is the scientific explanation
of how the animals got the way they are?
Science/Language Arts Connection: Note the use of the general
terms 'feline,' 'canine,' and 'antelope'
in the poem Duma.
Science and, therefore, the English language are filled with nouns
that categorize animals and adjectives that describe characteristics
of groups of animals. Here are just a few: avian, bovine, equine,
primate, fowl, swine, ungulate, nocturnal, diurnal, omnivore, carnivore,
herbivore, insectivore, rodent, ophidian, edentate, annelid, piscine,
lanate, and marsupial. Which of these do your students recognize?
Working in small groups, have them research the rest, reporting
their findings to the rest of the class and siting specific examples.
Note: By the way, cheetahs (Duma) are the only member
of the cat family with unretractable blades. Topi and sassaby are
different names for the same animal - a large speedy antelope with
thick, gnarly horns.
Many of the words we typically use when referring to a specific
animal are actually words that refer to a whole group of animals
rather than a species or a breed. Everyday examples are dog, cat,
horse, cow, antelope, sloth, armadillo, parrot, toucan, and snake.
To make students more aware of the richness of their language and
to work on the skill of categorizing, have students choose a commonly
used animal name and research breeds or species of that kind of
animal, again reporting the results to the rest of the class.
Science/Language Arts Connection II: Haiku poetry often paints
a descriptive picture of a natural event, so it's a perfect
way to combine language arts and science. Although, there
are only eleven words in the poem, Duma II, (see Bonus
Poems) they highlight the
most striking characteristics of the cheetah as it spies and races
after a springbok (a small antelope): its spots and its speed. Though
brief, the descriptive haiku poem draws a picture in the readers
mind. Have students research an animal, pick two or three key qualities/characteristics
of that animal, then write a haiku poem that draws a picture highlighting
the qualities/characteristics chosen. Try the same with other natural
phenomena: after researching, have students manipulate associated
descriptive words into a haiku formula (in this case, a 5-7-5 syllable
pattern).
Science Cross Reference: See 'Creative Writing Activity'
under Connecting Your Safari to the Curriculum:
Music for an activity related
to the themes of predation and scavenging.
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