Switcheroo Zoo

 

What it is:  Switcheroo Zoo is a site I learned about from Kevin Bibo on his outstanding blog Cal Teacher BlogSwitcheroo Zoo has fun interactive games and activities such as “Make New Animals” where students can create their own animal combinations, “Build an Online Habitat” where students choose animals and match them to the correct environment, “Switch Zoo Puzzles”, “Where do I Live” where students help return rescued animals to their homes, “Sound Match” where students match the animal song to the correct animal, “Meerkat Grab-a-Snack” where students help feed a Meerkat by catching food, and “Catch the Moment” where students take ‘pictures’ of wildlife.  Switcheroo Zoo also has short films, sound clips, and photographs about animals for students to watch and listen to.  Your students also have the opportunity to become a “Switch Zoo Guide” by completing the Switch Zoo Quest.  Students play nine fun animal related games and activities to become a guide.  When they finish, they will receive a Switch Zoo  certificate of merit, a guide badge, and are added to the list of offical guides.

How to integrate Switcheroo Zoo into the classroom:  Switcheroo Zoo is an awesome website for students to explore to learn more about animals and wildlife.  This would be a great site to visit when studying animals and their habitats.  There are three educational animal-themed games on the site that teach about animal characteristics and habitats.  Switcheroo Zoo has an educational section that includes lesson plans for art, science, creative writing, and persuasive writing.  In second grade at the school where I teach, students complete animal reports as an introduction to research.  Switcheroo Zoo has on-site research with 142 animal profiles, a US endangered species map, and stories about unusual animal feats on a Zookeeper’s blog.  This site is packed full of fun, useful activities, lessons, and resources!  In a computer lab setting, students can research and play games individual.  In the one or two classroom computer setting, students can visit Switcheroo Zoo as a science resource center.  With the projector or an interactive whiteboard, complete the activities as a whole class or show the animal videos to your whole class.  

 

Tips:  This site does have some Google ads.  I use these as an opportunity to teach my students how to spot ads on a website and discuss what the purpose of advertisements is.

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Switcheroo Zoo  in your classroom.

ARKive

 

What it is:  ARKive is an incredible website that I learned about from a tweet on Twitter (forgive me I was in the middle of class and didn’t keep track of who- thank you whoever you are!)  ARKive tag line is “images of life on Earth”, but ARKive is so much more than just a collection of images, it has thousands of videos, images and facts about the world’s species.  This is the digital version of Noah’s Ark!  This is the most impressive animal and life website I have seen!  I truly can’t say enough about this site, students of all ages will enjoy this one (I’m talking k-12 here!)  ARKive has an education section of the site that is a free multi-media educational resources complete with downloadable, ready to use audio/visual modules on a wide range of science, geography, citizenship, and environmental based topics.  ARKive also has some great games for students to play that are directly related to the lessons they learn while on the ARKive site.  Games range from building a habitat to word searches and digital fridge poetry.

How to integrate ARKive into the classroom:    ARKive’s ready made educational resources make it simple to integrate into your science, geography, or general classes.  The resources are ready made PowerPoint presentations (which incidentally also open nicely in Keynote which we use).  The resources bring learning to life with images, videos, facts, and some interactive pieces.  This is what textbooks should be!  ARKive’s ready made resources can be downloaded on classroom computers for use by small learning groups as a center, downloaded to a lab of computers for individual student exploration, or used with a projector and an interactive whiteboard for whole class learning and exploration.  The ARKive site itself is a wonderful place for students to explore and learn more about animal species and life on Earth.  This would be a great place for students to collect information, images, and video to create their own presentations.  The games provided on the ARKive site are fun for students and teach them as they play.  For example, students who are studying habitat can play the Design a Habitat game and gain an additional opportunity to interact with the concepts they are learning.  Older students can dig into the facts provided on ARKive and learn about animal classification and species of the world.  ARKive images could be used in the language arts classroom as a story starter or creative writing prompt.  

 

Tips:  This is truly an incredible site, I encourage you to take a look at it and use it with your class!  (Click on the education link at the bottom of the site for the Resources and Games.) 

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using ARKive  in your classroom.