Digital Program | Animal Classification and Adaptations
Students will develop their understanding of animal adaptions and classification by examining skull specimens, biological artefacts and zoo animals.
Program description
Each program includes a 30-minute online workshop with a Zoo Teacher and a teaching guide filled with activities for your scope and sequence. While not a tour of the zoo, you will have direct access to your own expert Zoo Teacher and unique zoo content.
In Animal Classification and Adaptations, students will learn valuable observation and classification skills to organise animals into groups based on shared characteristics.
With student and teacher resources to enhance the learning experience before, during and after your online workshop, Animal Classification and Adaptations brings the science of the animal kingdom to life. Students will be challenged to classify animals, determine what adaptations they have to help them survive and what threats they are facing in the wild. By understanding what animals require to thrive in the wild, students will learn how they can adapt their behaviour to ensure species survival.
Students will learn:
- How to observe the structural and behavioural adaptations of animals to group and classify animals in various ways
- About the food webs and food chains animals need to thrive in their environment
- The impact of humans on places, habitats and ecosystems
Want to come face-to-face with our incredible wildlife and extend your students' learning in their environment? Book in an excursion to one of our three amazing zoos.
Program sequence
Connect
Use the activities in the Teaching Guide and Workbook (below) to spark students’ curiosity before their online workshop.
Connect and Understand
Analyse skulls and explore artefacts to understand the complex world of animal classification and adaptation. Students can use their newfound understanding of animal classification to organise the diversity of the animal kingdom at Melbourne Zoo. Students will learn how their understanding of animal adaptations and classification can help them to save wildlife.
Understand
Use activities in the Teaching Guide and Workbook to deepen students’ learning.
Act
Use the Teaching Guide to enable students to master their knowledge and skills in real-world contexts.
Program resources
Learning outcomes
Victorian Curriculum 7-8
There are differences within and between groups of organisms; classification helps organise this diversity (VCSSU091)
- Students will learn about classification systems and, through facilitated observations of organisms living and once living, note the differences and classify in a range of ways
Interactions between organisms can be described in terms of food chains and food webs and can be affected by human activity (VCECU011)
- Students will learn about the fragile nature of food webs, the roles of predators, prey and primary consumers and how humans can have a positive and negative environmental impact on these
Identify, analyse and explain interconnections within places and between places and identify and explain changes resulting from these interconnections (VCGGC101)
- Students will learn about the impact of humans on places, habitats and ecosystems and what effect these impacts may have
Online workshop details
Your online workshop will be hosted on Zoom.
All you need is a computer or device with internet access.
During the exclusive online workshop for your class, you will be able use the camera and microphone functions.
Students can also communicate with a Melbourne Zoo Teacher by typing in the Chat box.
We will send out a link to join the program to the teacher that booked.
Join us ten minutes before your start time. Arriving early will enable us to check any tech issues and start your session on time.
Book now
Call 1300 966 784 to book an online workshop.
Credit card payment at time of booking. Cancellation must be made at least 10 business days prior to your booked workshop. If not, a cancellation fee of $180 will be invoiced.