This morning I woke up really early to go to class at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. I was very sleepy and it was 25 degrees outside! Yikes! I had a break between classes, so I decided I would stay inside and check out an application for my iPad that I could use as an educational tool once I start teaching. I found the World Wildlife Fund Application and thought it looked interesting and it was free! I love animals, and I would like learn more about them. Maybe if I learn more about endangered species, I can help kids become interested in them and we can brainstorm ways to help protect those animals from becoming extinct! An issue I could see with using this in the classroom is that the kids may skim through the information rather than reading it and thinking about what they have learned. To prevent this from happening, I will have the students get into small groups and discuss what they have learned and how they could use that information to help support a better environment and why it is important to protect our environment. I would have the students ask themselves what they think life would be like if one of the animals they learned about became extinct. Another issue that could arise while doing this task could be that students may get off task, but I would monitor them in their small groups to make sure they are doing what they are supposed to do. Overall, I think this would be a great opportunity to teach fourth grade science standard from the Alabama Course of Study to describe the interdependence of plants and animals. Students would specifically be able to describe characteristics of animals, their interaction with the environment, and the effects of human life on their habitat and access to resources. It is easy to use, and could be used for a 30 minute lesson, or it could be incorporated into a unit on life science as a research source that is stretched over a week. Here's the link to the app on Itunes for more information: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wwf-together/id581920331?mt=8.
I downloaded the app and it opened with a video of a cute little origami panda, and a message appeared on the screen with the mission of the WWF, "Building a future in which people live in harmony with nature."What a great mission statement! I clicked the button on the front of the screen that said "Start" and it gave me a list of animals and their pictures to explore. I wanted to learn more about elephants, so I tapped the picture of the elephant and the learning began. There were several slides of information, videos, and visual/kinesthetic sensory learning activities.
I began by reading about how elephants are one of the smartest animals! They have the ability to recognize themselves in a mirror and display complex emotions such as empathy and distress. They can way anywhere from 4-6 tons and live in forests and grasslands, mostly in Africa but some live in Asia too. I found a video of a some baby elephants playing, and a narrator in the video talked about his experience of having some curious elephants took a closer look at him while he was in their natural habitat observing them. I learned about the threats that elephants face, such as habitat loss, poachers, and issues with elephants taking over people's harvest fields which causes conflict between people and elephants in those areas. There was a section that said "smear" where I had to rub my finger across the screen to uncover some interesting facts about elephants. That section of the application page said that elephants love rice! Unfortunately, their love of rice is what causes them to take over rice harvesting fields, damaging human's habitats. I viewed pictures of elephants in their natural environment doing various activities such as bathing, eating, and playing. These elephants remind me of human kids! It is interesting how similar animal personalities can be to our own. It is important to put into perspective the value of these animal's lives and that we need to do as much as we can to try to protect them from harm. I can't wait to use this application with my future students!
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