The Elephant in the Room!
Elephant Family believes that children have an important role to play in saving the world’s endangered animals, which is why schools from all over Scotland were invited to be part of Jungle City.
Elephant Family teamed up with Wild in Art to create a mini Jungle City experience in the classrooms of 16 primary schools in Edinburgh. Smaller versions of the Jungle City tiger models were delivered to schools, generating a buzz of excitement, with children chomping at the bit to let their artistic talents loose. The cub-sized tigers provided a unique platform for teachers to develop their pupils’ enthusiasm for learning and debate around wildlife, conservation and the environment. Children were taught about the threats facing our planet’s rainforest and the issues Asian wildlife are contending with, such as habitat destruction and poaching. The kids were let loose on their tigers, with designs ranging from pirates to a depiction of how one of the schools fits into the Leith community. For a fantastic finale, most of the schools tigers joined the Jungle City Community at the final farewell in Dovecot Studios. They were on display for the whole of Edinburgh to admire and are now safely back on display at their schools.
For one particular school, the Jungle City experience went even further: Craigour Park Primary School joined us for a taster session of an innovative education project offered by Dr Josh Plotnik. Josh is the founder of ‘Think Elephants International’ and Head of Elephant Research at The Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation. With him we set up a live link between 20 pupils from Craigour Park Primary and three elephants in Thailand. We couldn’t take the schoolchildren to Thailand, nor indeed bring the elephants to Scotland, but we did bring elephants out of their natural habitat – virtually – and into the classroom at Craigour Park Primary.
With their fabulous button tiger in the background the students commenced on a live internet chat with Josh and the elephants in Thailand. After a silence induced by pure enthrallment, the children got into the flow of things asking Josh to show them parts of the elephants – including inside their mouths – and listened to the younger ones squeal in the background. With probing questions to Josh, the children showed extreme insight and understanding throughout the live session, especially considering that had not previously been introduced to the topic of Asian elephants and their conservation.
We at Elephant Family love the concept of ‘Think Elephants International’ and are looking forward to seeing it reach more schools in America, as well as hopefully Japan, Britain and throughout the range of the Asian elephant, starting in Thailand.
Young people will shape the future of our world, and need to be provided with the knowledge, skills and values to safeguard our beautiful planet. Through Jungle City, together with the help of parents and teachers, we have ignited in these children a sense of wonder for the natural world, and engaged them with global conservation efforts to save endangered animals.
written by Lara Rogers on 12th October 11
