30.09.2022

G4 children investigate animals at the Zoology Museum 

By Bruna Cronfli

In the Unit of Inquiry “Sharing the World with Animals”, the G4 students (4 years old) research the characteristics of animals, their well-being, the places they inhabit, and the relationship between them and the spaces.

Throughout the investigative process, each class showed a special curiosity about a certain topic. Among them, several interests emerged, such as ocean animals or animals from the savannah. Based on this, the children started to ponder on the most appropriate place where animals could be happy.

As a result of these discussions, the educators concluded that a Field Trip to the Zoology Museum at USP could be an excellent opportunity for the children to learn more about the subject. The choice for the place was also due to the fact that it is a museum with a great diversity of animals. The collection includes dinosaur skeletons that are unique in the world.

During the guided tour, the monitors told many curiosities about the animals. Most of them are stuffed animals that died in the zoo and were taken to the museum so that they could be exhibited.

There is an area exclusively dedicated to animals that live in Brazilian habitats – in the Amazon, Atlantic Forest, Atlantic Ocean, Cerrado, and Caatinga. “It was interesting to see how the children were able to establish connections with content already worked on in the Portuguese Language and Brazilian Culture classes. The classes had been in contact with animals from the Brazilian fauna, such as the maned wolf and the blue macaw, when they read the collection “Brasileirinhos”, by Lalau and Laurabeatriz”, says Laura Landi, one of the teachers of the grade.

The children were able to see stuffed animals, touch an elephant skull, a turtle hoof, see dinosaur skeletons, and those of a giant sloth and a gorilla. Some students were interested to learn that the gorilla is a cousin of the human being and noticed that our skeletons are similar.

After the tour, the classes recalled what they had seen and what had caught their attention. Then they read some books about the impacts of humans on the lives of animals and discussed the subject. The museum guides commented that many animals are suffering because of humans and their actions, and, as a consequence, many are becoming extinct, allowing the children to reflect further on our responsibility to the environment.