West Virginia Big Cat Rescue Projects
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EASY LESSON:
The following is the process I used with middle school students and it worked very well:
GETTING STARTED:
These sentences might help with ideas of what to write, but please try not to copy them verbatim:
TIPS:
EASY LESSON:
The following is the process I used with middle school students and it worked very well:
- Give middle school kids ideas and have the kids discuss them and what to write. Then the class writes a letter. The class letter can be on school stationery and the kids can add some kind of picture - hand drawn or cut from a magazine etc. Then any student can write an individual letter, but it needs to be different from the class letter. We want to avoid these being "form" letters.
- Primary kids might like to color a picture for the classroom and discuss why you should respect wild cats and not pet cubs or own a wild cat. They could send a class letter which might have an attached sheet with a small picture from each child.
- The major source I used for the middle school kids was https://bigcatrescue.org/big-cat-act/ This link contains videos, photos and lots of information. Many students read various cat bios and other articles once they realized how much information was available at bigcatrescue.org.
- For younger students I shared some stories from the biographies of the cats online bigcatrescue.org/catbio Then used the FREE Storyio app to hear Carole Baskin reading Lisa Spencer Novak’s book A Forever Home about what it's like to be a captive big cat.
- The class wrote a letter to the government official and included a sheet of paper with a small picture from everyone in the class on that one sheet.
GETTING STARTED:
These sentences might help with ideas of what to write, but please try not to copy them verbatim:
- Tiger cubs should not be taken from their mothers at birth to use for cub petting. They belong in the wild with their mothers raising them.
- Please help pass the Big Cat Public Safety Act to stop the petting and help save the tiger in the wild.
- Thousands of big cats languish in backyards as "pets" while roadside zoos who offer cub petting and photo ops incessantly breed cubs that are ripped from their mothers at birth, physically punished, and deprived of sleep with no tracking of where they end up or how many die in the process.
- The only solution is to pass the Big Cat Public Safety Act S1210 - federal legislation that would end owning big cats as pets and stop cub petting, two major sources of big cat abuse. This is important to me and I hope you will call S1210 up for a hearing as soon as possible.
TIPS:
- I had all kids sign the class letter with their first name or a nickname only.
- The letter envelopes were hand written by someone who could write or print legibly. Some sent email in letter format.
- Some mentioned they were future voters.
Other lessons with more depth:
K - 8 Lesson Model
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High School + Lesson Model
Download pdf
K - 8 Lesson Model
Download pdf
High School + Lesson Model
Download pdf