Simon Skjodt International Orangutan Center

INTERNATIONAL
ORANGUTAN CENTER
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International Orangutan Center
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Dear Educator,
The Indianapolis Zoo applauds your commitment to educating children about
wildlife and the duty we have to care for it. This generation of students will
bear a heavy responsibility for protecting our planet and using resources
wisely, but need to understand what they can do today to make a difference.
Few issues are more pressing than the risks of habitat destruction and the
plight of endangered species like orangutans. Your students will be among the
first Hoosiers to learn about the International Orangutan Center, the animals
residing there, and the efforts the Indianapolis Zoo and others are taking to
save orangutans from extinction.
If you haven’t registered
your class for the orangutan
“funraising” component of this
program, be sure to sign up.
Only classes participating in the
fundraiser are eligible to win
the exclusive sneak peek and
study trip to the International
Orangutan Center before it
opens to the public!
Seven extraordinary orangutans will kick off an all-new era at the Indianapolis
Zoo on May 24, 2014. Their journeys began across the country, but they will
come together in one extraordinary place: the Indianapolis Zoo’s International
Orangutan Center. This remarkable group of endangered primates will inspire
children and families across the community with their individual stories of
friendship and affection, triumph over adversity, and even survival in the face
of incredible odds. These are creatures of the rainforest, yet through this exhibit
they will find a home in Indiana where they can lead enriched, fulfilled lives.
This is where you come in. As you well know, learning can be very fun and
the Indiana Academic Standards based activities in this program guide were
designed to teach your students about orangutans in engaging, thoughtprovoking ways. This is only a guide, however, and that is why we have
included suggested resources so that you can address any of the topics more
deeply. Each lesson can be presented independently and in any order. Please
feel free to adapt the program so that it fits into your class’s lesson plans.
Again, the Indianapolis Zoo—and the orangutans!—thank you for your
participation in our International Orangutan Center school program. If you
have any questions, please contact me at 317.630.5137 or by email at
ktuttle@indyzoo.com.
Sincerely,
Kerry Tuttle
Public Campaign Coordinator
Indianapolis Zoo
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INTERNATIONAL
ORANGUTAN CENTER
Table of Contents
Orangutan Basics............................................ 4
Orangutan Cognition.................................... 8
Life in the Rainforest................................... 12
Endangered Species..................................... 15
Orangutan Writing Prompts...................... 18
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Orangutan Basics
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This lesson will introduce your students to orangutans, one of the five species of
great apes (orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and humans).
Objectives for Orangutan Basics lesson:
• Students will examine the physical characteristics of orangutans and will use
a Venn diagram to compare the characteristics of orangutans and humans.
• Students will investigate the purpose of opposable thumbs and demonstrate
the dexterity of animals with this physical characteristic.
• Students will investigate basic engineering principles to design and build a
small nest that is capable of supporting weight.
Orangutan Basics
Resources:
BrainPop video: “Primates”
Russon, Anne E., Orangutans:
Wizards of the Rainforest
(2000). New York: Firefly Books.
Shumaker, Robert, Orangutans
(2007). St. Paul: Voyageur
Press.
Francine, Gabriella, We Can Help
Orangutans (2013). BBM Books.
Laman, Tim and Cheryl Knott, Face
to Face with Orangutans (2009).
National Geographic Society.
Grindley, Sally, Little Sibu:
An Orangutan Tale (1999).
Peachtree Publishing, Ltd.
Orme, David, Orangutan (2005).
Heinemann-Raintree Books.
Eszterhas, Suzi, Eye on the Wild:
Orangutan (2013). Frances
Lincoln Children’s Books.
Knusden, Shannon, Climbing
Orangutans (2007). Lerner
Publishing Group.
Orangutan Island videos by Animal
Planet
Born to Be Wild (2012) video
produced by Drew Fellman and
distributed through Warner
Home Video
Association of Zoos and Aquariums,
http://engage.aza.ort/
orangutans/teachers-lounge/
Borneo Orangutan Society, Canada
www.orangutan.ca
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Orangutan Basics lesson
Orangutans are some of our closest relatives in the animal kingdom – our
DNA is nearly 97% identical! It is not surprising, then, that we share many
physical characteristics with these animals. In this lesson, your students will
learn about the physical characteristics of orangutans and will compare
the characteristics with those of humans through the completion of a Venn
diagram. Students will complete a fun activity to demonstrate the importance
of opposable thumbs.
Orangutans are uniquely adapted for life in the trees. An adaptation is
any physical characteristic or behavior that helps an animal survive in its
environment. Some examples of adaptations of orangutans are:
• Binocular, or 3 dimensional, vision. Depth perception keeps orangutans
from falling dozens of feet to the ground!
• Arms that are much longer and stronger than legs. This helps orangutans
move through the forest canopy by grasping onto overhead branches in a
process called “semi-brachiation.” During this process, one hand is always
securely attached to a branch to prevent falls. In fact, adults can hang by
their arms for hours without tiring!
• Large hands with long fingers.
As orangutans travel through
trees, they use a power grip
where the hand acts like a hook,
with fingers wrapping around
branches and closing with a
vise-like grip. Fingers are so
long that they wrap completely
around a branch for stability.
Activity:
Have your students research
characteristics of orangutans
and complete a Venn diagram
comparing humans and orangutans.
Younger students may find pictures
of orangutans more helpful than
other materials. Older students
may expand research to include
social life, populations, geography,
etc.
Some information to consider:
arm span (Azy at the Indianapolis
Zoo has arms that stretch 9
feet from fingertip to fingertip!),
size of hands, rate of movement
(orangutans travel an average
of 1/3 kilometer per hour while
humans walk an average of 5
kilometers an hour), and variety
of foods and quantity of foods in
diets.
Activity:
Opposable Thumbs
Materials needed: rubber bands
or yarn
• Unlike humans, orangutans have
both opposable thumbs and
opposable big toes. The ability
to use their feet for grasping branches helps them move securely through
the rainforest.
• Orangutan lips are highly dexterous and are often used for tasks requiring
fine motor skills. When an orangutan is holding onto branches with her
arms and legs, her mouth may be the only body part available to perform
tasks such as grooming and feeding her young.
• In Sumatra, where tigers roam the forest floor, an orangutan’s arboreal (tree
dwelling) life protects him from predators.
• Orangutans in the wild are primarily focused on finding food in an
environment where resources can be scarce at times. As a result, they
live semi-solitary lifestyles. This makes sense because a large group of
orangutans travelling together would have to travel through an impossibly
large home range in order to find enough fruit to feed each member of the
group.
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To demonstrate the importance
of opposable thumbs, have your
students place a rubber band or
tie a piece of yarn around their
thumbs and index fingers so that
the thumb is not able to move
across the palm. Give the students
a simple task to perform, such as
tying shoes, writing, or sharpening
a pencil. How difficult was it?
Orangutan Basics lesson
Orangutans sleep in nests that they build in the trees, a new nest each night.
Researchers have discovered that this nest building demonstrates a keen
understanding of engineering, as these nests must support a 200 pound
orangutan from a height of up to 100 feet. Orangutans use different types
of branches to build their nests; thick, strong branches are used for the basic
structure of the nest and then smaller, more pliable branches to make a
comfortable “mattress.” Roland Ennos, a researcher from the University of
Manchester and a senior member of the research team, explained that “This
shows that they [orangutans] seem to have some engineering knowledge,
probably using diameter as a way of determining branch rigidity, which has
implications about the evolution of intelligence.” The middle of the nest is
more pliable and the outside is more rigid, a design that the researchers believe
makes the nest stronger and more comfortable. It only takes an orangutan
about 10 to 15 minutes to create a functional sleeping nest. (Story published on
Planet Earth Online, 17 April, 2012)
Activity:
Building a Nest
Materials needed: a variety of
materials such as string, straws,
sticks, paper, cardboard, etc.
Students will be asked to break
into groups and construct a nest
from the materials provided. Each
nest will be tested for strength by
placing objects of uniform weight
inside. This will demonstrate the
engineering challenges associated
with building a nest that will
support a 200 pound orangutan.
Students should begin by
brainstorming the ideas for the
structure of the nest. This can be
a large group discussion of the
strength of different materials and
different shapes/designs. Groups
will then begin construction in
their groups. Once the nests have
been constructed, students will
test the strength of the nest by
placing objects such as pennies,
ball bearings, etc. inside the nest
one object at a time. This would be
fun as a large group activity, since
the students will enjoy watching
and waiting for the point at which
the nest will fail. The group with
the strongest nest could receive a
special reward.
photo ©Shane Moor / Animals Animals
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Other classroom activities could
include study of where orangutans
are found in the wild, discussion
of adaptations of other animals,
comparison of fingerprints between
classmates (have students place
finger on an ink pad and then
place print on an empty balloon;
when the balloon is blown up, the
individual lines of the print can be
clearly seen), graphing the number
of foods eaten by orangutans and
students in the classroom.
Orangutan Basics lesson
Younger students may complete
the included Growing Up
Orangutan activity.
Activity:
Growing Up as an Orangutan
Have your students read the book Little Sibu: An Orangutan Tale by Sally
Grindley. As a class, the students will develop a story map by identifying the
characters in the story ,the problem the characters face, the setting of the
story, and how the problem is resolved. Students will also make comparisons
between the mother/child relationship in the story to human parent/child
relationships by matching situations from the story and common situations in
a human’s life. The matches are listed below.
1 a. Hati nurses, bathes, carries, and makes a bed for Sibu.
1 b. A human mother cares for her newborn baby.
2 a. Hati stays close to Sibu as he plays. Sibu learns to feed himself.
2 b. A mom follows her toddler around a playground and gives him a
snack to eat.
3 a. Hati wants Sibu to be more independent. Sibu finds food for
himself.
3 b. A mom asks her child to make his own lunch for school.
4 a. Sibu is upset that Hati is not paying attention to him, so he runs off
howling.
4 b. A school-age child has a temper tantrum.
5 a. Sibu wrestles with a new friend.
5 b. A child makes a new friend on the playground.
6 a. Hati keeps leaving Sibu alone in the nest when he is older.
6 b. A mother encourages her child to sleep in his own room.
7 a. Sibu sees his mother, but travels on his own, finds food, and builds
his own nests.
7 b. A child graduates from high school or college and goes off on his
own.
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Orangutan Cognition
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This lesson will examine the unique cognitive abilities possessed by orangutans.
Orangutans are known to imitate behaviors, use tools to solve problems,
and have been taught to communicate with researchers through
the use of a symbol-based language.
Objectives for Orangutan Cognition lesson:
• Students will demonstrate an understanding of the cognitive abilities of
orangutans after watching a video clip of an orangutan tool use.
• Students will invent their own symbol based language, similar to the
Orangutan Language Project, generating coded messages that classmates
will decode.
Orangutan Cognition
Resources:
Russon, Anne E., Orangutans:
Wizards of the Rainforest
(2000). New York: Firefly Books.
Shumaker, Robert, Orangutans
(2007). St. Paul: Voyageur
Press.
National Wildlife Federation
interview with Anne Russon,
https://www.nwf.org/
News-and-Magazines/
National-Wildlife/Animals/
Archives/2011/Orangutans.aspx
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Orangutan Cognition lesson
Orangutans, like all great apes, have large brains in relation to their size.
An orangutan’s education begins almost immediately after birth and young
orangutans spend seven to nine years learning from their mothers. One piece
of information that is particularly important is knowledge of a wide range
of foods; orangutans need to know how to find nearly 3,000 foods in the
rainforest and they seem to have an ability to “remember” which foods are
available each season.
Orangutans also exhibit the complex form of learning that we call imitation,
a sophisticated process that requires an animal to understand the meaning
of the actions of others. Have your students play a game of charades. This
simple game demonstrates the complexity of communicating meaning
through actions. It certainly takes skill and a great deal of mental ability
to be successful, doesn’t it? Orangutans in the wild and in captivity have
demonstrated the ability to imitate and to transfer that knowledge to new
situations. Consider a story related by psychologist Dr. Anne Russon in which
Princess, an orangutan at Borneo’s Camp Leakey, solved the problem of
cooling hot coffee she found in a plastic bottle:
She retrieved an old soya sauce bottle, bit off its cap, and poured the coffee
from her plastic bottle into it. Princess’s work was a bit messy, with some of
the coffee spilling down the side of the soya bottle, but most of the coffee did
pour into the soya bottle and the pouring did cool it enough to drink it. Her
pouring coordinated four different items-two bottles, the soya bottle’s lid,
and hot coffee.
Russon, Anne E., Orangutans: Wizards of the Rainforest (2000). New York: Firefly Books.
Certainly, Princess had seen each of the tasks performed by humans, although
it is unlikely that she had seen them combined in the same way.
Orangutans have cognitive abilities beyond just imitation. Orangutans have
distinguished themselves from other great ape species with their impressive
reputation for tool use, most likely because orangutans are attentive to details,
extremely patient, and contemplative. Orangutans have been observed making
tools that serve as cups, umbrellas, and even ropes they create by weaving
fibers together! In the wild, tool making is quite useful as orangutans must
often find innovative ways to access foods in the rainforest. One example of
this was observed by researchers who noticed that orangutans were able to
consume the Neesia fruit. When the fruit is ripe, openings appear on the sides,
but the nutritious (and to orangutans, delicious) seeds inside remain protected
by small stinging hairs that are similar in texture to fiberglass insulation. Some
orangutan populations have learned to insert sticks into the openings of the
fruit, knocking the seeds out and into their mouths. This avoids any contact
with the protective hairs surrounding the seeds. Shumaker, Robert, Orangutans
(2007). St. Paul: Voyageur Press.
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Knobi, one of the orangutans at the
Indianapolis Zoo’s International
Orangutan Center, is a master at
tool use. She is also known as a
bit of a “neat freak” who keeps
her area clean with brooms and
washcloths she fashions from
objects around her.
Orangutan Cognition lesson
Perhaps the most remarkable evidence of orangutan intelligence is their ability
to understand language. For many years, orangutans have been taught to
use American Sign Language with great skill. Recently, however, researchers
have been studying the ability of orangutans to use written language through
the use of abstract symbols. Dr. Robert Shumaker, Vice President of Life
Sciences and Conservation at the Indianapolis Zoo, has been a leader in this
research. At the International Orangutan Center he will continue his work on
the Orangutan Language Project with several of the orangutans, including
Azy, who has demonstrated an understanding of various symbols, including
symbols for objects and the more difficult task of associating a symbol with a
numerical value.
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Activity:
Symbol Based Language
Have your class complete the
enclosed worksheet, encouraging
them to develop a set of symbols
that represent the things that are
most important in each student’s
life. Ask them to send a coded
message to another student, who
will then decode the message.
Orangutan Cognition lesson
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food
raisin
chow
carrot
green
bean
grape
orange
banana
popcorn
apple
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which
food?
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number
zero
object
crates
one
three
two
five
four
seven
six
nine
eight
which
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cup
Rocky
ball
hardhat
Azy
clothes
Knobi
burlap
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brown
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Lucy
bag
which
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Charly
which
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Austin
person
David
JP
Lisa
Mike
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Orangutans are capable of learning language. All languages involve symbols and sentence structure. Symbols comevertline
in
many forms, such as gestures in sign language or written symbols on a computer screen. Symbols are different from
icons. Icons look like what they represent, such as a smiley face to mean “happy”. The meaning of symbols must be
no
yes
send
clear
(incorrect)
(correct)
learned. Sentence
structure
describes
the rules
that you follow when combining symbols. The users of any language
must agree on the symbols and sentence structure. If they don’t, communication will be hopelessly confusing.
Our orangutans are learning a vocabulary of written symbols that they select on a touch sensitive computer screen.
There are 7 different symbol categories used by the orangutans at the Indianapolis Zoo: foods, non-food objects, verbs,
adjectives, proper names of people, proper names of orangutans, and numbers. Each category has its own specific
shape. All foods, for example, have a symbol with a rectangular shape. A rectangle alone means “food” in general. There
are even symbols that mean “yes/good” or “no/wrong.”
Look at the symbols used in the Orangutan Language Project. Notice how the symbols do not look like the objects they
represent. Could you design a language based on symbols instead of words? Think about what is important in your life
and design symbols that represent these things. Make your own symbols and meanings then send a coded message to a
friend. Just make sure you give your friend a list of your symbols and meanings so they can decode the message!
Your symbols:
Your message:
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Life in the Rainforest
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This lesson will teach students about the structure of the rainforest and the
diversity of life that depends upon a healthy rainforest habitat.
Objectives for Life in the Rainforest lesson:
• Students will be able to identify the layers of the rainforest and draw plant
and animal species living in each layer.
• Students will be able to locate tropical rainforests (and possibly temperate
rainforests) on a world map.
• Students will assess the effects of deforestation on the animals who depend
upon the rainforest for food and will discuss recommendations for habitat
preservation.
Life in the Rainforest
Resources:
Cherry, Lynne, The Great Kapok
Tree: A Tale of the Amazon
Rainforest (2000). HMH Books
for Young Readers.
Lasky, Catherine, The Most
Beautiful Roof in the World:
Exploring the Rainforest Canopy
(1997). HMH Books for Young
Readers.
Fredericks, Anthony, Exploring the
Rainforest: Science Activities for
Kids (1996). Fulcrum Publishing.
Marent, Thomas, Rainforest (2006).
New York: DK Publishing
Whitehouse, Patty, Living in the
Rainforest (2007). Vero Beach:
Rourke Publishing
BrainPop video: “Tropical
Rainforests”
Arkive http://www.arkive.org/
education/
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Life in the Rainforest lesson
Rainforests cover only about 2% of the surface of the Earth, but they house a
great diversity of life. Consider these rainforest facts:
• Rainforests receive a minimum of 75 inches of rain each year, but both
temperate and tropical rainforests often receive annual rainfall more than
twice that amount.
• Rainforests around the world contain about 50% of the earth’s plant and
animal life.
• Rainforests can be found in all parts of the world, as far north as Canada
(temperate rainforests) and in warmer climates near the equator (tropical
rainforests). Rainforests are present on every continent except Antarctica.
• The world’s largest temperate rainforest stretches along North America’s
Pacific coast, from northern California to Canada.
• The world’s largest tropical rainforest is the Amazon rainforest, which
covers more than 2 million square miles (about 40% of the land in Brazil).
• The Southeast Asian rainforests (home to orangutans) are the oldest
consistent rainforests on Earth, dating back 70 million years.
• Rainforests touch many parts of human life. About 25% of all medicines
are derived from rainforest plants and rainforests provide more than 3,000
fruits, including avocados, coconuts, bananas, chocolate and vanilla .
• There are four layers of rainforests: emergent, canopy, understory and
forest floor.
• Some rainforest trees grow 75 feet tall within 5 years!
• The trees of a tropical rainforest are so densely packed that it can take a
raindrop as much as 10 minutes to reach the ground.
• Around the globe, an area of rainforest the size of a football field is
destroyed every second!
The Four Layers of the Rainforest
Emergent Layer—Trees in the emergent layer grow exceptionally high, 200
feet or more, and tower over the rainforest. These trees receive more sunlight
than other rainforest plants, but they do not retain moisture as well since
they are not confined to the humid and shady conditions of the layers below.
Animals inhabiting this layer include insects, birds, and bats.
Canopy—Trees in the rainforest canopy grow 100-150 feet high. This layer is
home to the greatest diversity of life within the rainforest and animals there
include monkeys, birds, sloths, and orangutans. The plants in the canopy work
like an umbrella, sheltering the plants and animals below from the sun. These
plants often have pointed “drip tips” at the end of leaves, allowing water to run
off the leaves so that mold doesn’t form and also to get water to the plants in
the lower layers of the forest.
Understory—The understory is the rainforest layer between the canopy and the
forest floor. Plants and trees here have leaves that are large or vines that twist
and turn so that they can capture what little light breaks through the canopy.
This layer is dark and humid and contains vast numbers of insect species.
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Activity:
Have your students locate different
rainforests on a world map. Find
the Amazon Rainforest, rainforests
in Indonesia, and the Pacific
Northwest temperate rainforest.
Activity:
Have your students draw pictures
of the plants and animals of the
rainforest, labeling each rainforest
layer in their picture.
Additional activities for this
lesson could include a rainforest
product scavenger hunt in the
classroom or at home; math
activities that convert height of
trees from feet to yards and/or
inches and compare the number of
species and land in rainforests with
the rest of the world, expressing
those comparisons as fractions and
decimals; and research activities on
rainforests and habitat destruction;
rainforest food chain or food web
activities
Life in the Rainforest lesson
Rainforest Floor—The forest floor receives very little sunlight and as a result,
few plants grow in this layer. The forest floor is covered mostly by decomposing
vegetation that has fallen from the upper layers. Animals inhabiting this layer
include insects and larger animals such as jaguars and tigers.
Activity:
Orangutans spend a majority of
their time eating and finding food.
They use the trees to move from
place to place within the forest.
Orangutans often memorize
pathways to find their favorite
foods in season. Orangutans also
use the trees of the rainforest
to protect them from predators
below, specifically the Sumatran
tiger. Unfortunately, rainforest
destruction has made it difficult
for orangutans to survive. Large
areas of rainforest have been
destroyed, either by cutting
down trees or burning them, to
clear the land for agricultural
or development uses for things
like businesses, and roads. Have
a class discussion about reasons
why humans destroy natural
resources like the rainforest. Are
there benefits to mankind when
this happens? When deforestation happens, fragmented habitats are created,
leaving orangutans isolated and unable to reach other sources of food, shelter,
and mates.
Have students cut circles out of
green paper to represent trees.
Arrange the “trees” to create a
rainforest. Each “tree” should be
touching at least one other circle.
Deforestation is devastating to the animals in the rainforest and will have
an effect on humans. Discuss the Tree Trail Game with your students, but
also encourage them to think about the products they use that come from
the rainforest. Make a list of rainforest products and have the students think
about the consequences if these foods, medicines, and other products were to
disappear.
Have students roll a die and then
remove that many “trees” from
the forest. Can the orangutan still
reach the fruit?
The Indianapolis Zoo has begun a pilot program in Borneo where trees will
be grown and then planted in deforested areas. This reforestation project
is intended to reconnect the isolated habitat “islands” where orangutans
are trapped. Discuss the project with your class in the context of the Tree
Challenge Game.
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Tree Trail Challenge
Materials needed: green paper,
yellow paper, orange paper,
scissors, dice
Place a “fruit” token that has been
cut out of yellow paper inside a
green circle at the end of your
forest. At the opposite end of your
forest, place an orange “orangutan”
circle in one of the trees.
The object of this game is to get
the orangutan from one end of
the forest to the fruit at the other
end. The orangutan can only travel
from one tree to another as long
as the trees touch. If the trees do
not touch, there is too much space
in the forest for the orangutan to
move to that tree.
Ask your students before the game
begins if they think it would be
easy or difficult for the orangutan
to reach the fruit. It should appear
to be simple, since there are plenty
of trees and plenty of ways for the
orangutan to reach the fruit.
Repeat and remove trees a few
more times. What happens when
the trees begin to disappear?
What happens when large parts of
the forest are gone? How is this
changing the way the orangutan
gets to the fruit? Is there a point at
which the orangutan can no longer
reach the food?
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Endangered Species
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This lesson will focus on endangered species and how humans can take action to
protect wildlife. Students will learn the difference between threatened species,
endangered species, critically endangered species, and species that are extinct.
Objectives for Endangered Species lesson:
• Students will assess their current knowledge of endangered species
by completing a K-W-L chart at the beginning and the end of the class
discussion.
• Students will identify the names of several endangered species.
• Students will investigate an endangered species native to their region and
will devise a class project to help protect the animal.
Endangered Species
Resources:
Arkive www.arkive.org/education/
BrainPop video: Extinction
BrainPop Jr. video: Extinct and
Endangered Species
Fitcher, George S., Endangered
Animals: 140 Species in Full
Color (1995). Racine: Western
Publishing Company, Inc.
Corwin, Jeff, 100 Heartbeats: The
Race to Save the Earth’s Most
Endangered Species (2009).
New York: Rodale
McGavin, George C., Endangered:
Wildlife on the Brink of
Extinction (2006). Buffalo:
Firefly Books, Ltd.
Osborne, Mary Pope and Natalie
Pope Boyce, Pandas and
Other Endangered Species: A
Nonfiction Companion to Magic
Tree House #48: A Perfect Time
for Pandas (2012). New York:
Random House
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services:
http://www.fws.gov/
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Endangered Species lesson
An endangered species is any animal, plant or living thing that is will become
extinct if nothing is done to stop the cause of its decline. Since the year 1600,
more than 500 species of wild animals and plants have become extinct in
North America alone! Worldwide, scientists believe as many as 20,000 species
are in danger of extinction. A critically endangered species is at the highest risk
for extinction; its population has declined by at least 80% over the past three
generations or is projected to decline by 80% over the next three generations.
Species that are likely to become extinct in the near future are considered
threatened species.
In the past, animals became extinct because of naturally occurring events,
such as a volcano, or changes in climate (think: Ice Age), but today, man is
the biggest threat to wildlife. Habitat destruction is one of the chief causes of
endangerment and extinction. Animals are uniquely adapted to their habitats.
We looked at this in Lesson 1. What happens when the environment changes?
Think about what happened in the Tree Trail Challenge game. When the
orangutan became trapped, he was unable to get to food. This is happening
more and more frequently in Borneo and Sumatra, where rainforest has been
converted to oil palm plantations. These plantations provide jobs for those
living nearby, and also provide a relatively inexpensive oil that is an ingredient
in nearly half of the products we use today.
Environmentalists and wildlife conservationists agree that, because palm oil
is beneficial in these ways, oil palm plantations will continue to be established.
Instead, experts believe that we should focus on an approach that takes
all sides into consideration. One way to address the problem of oil palm
plantations is to require palm oil to be grown and produced in a sustainable
way, without harming the environment. Many companies and organizations
(including the Indianapolis Zoo) have joined the Roundtable on Sustainable
Palm Oil, an organization committed to making sure that all palm oil is
produced without destruction of wildlife habitat.
Habitat destruction doesn’t just mean taking trees and resources away from an
area, but can also mean damaging the resources that remain. Pollution from
factories, pesticide runoff, and untreated sewage poison the lakes and streams
that are home to fish. These fish may die, leaving those animals who eat the
fish without enough food, and so their numbers diminish as well. As you can
see, changing even one part of an ecosystem has consequences far beyond that
one change!
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Activity:
K-W-L Chart
Before you discuss endangered
species, ask the students to begin
a K-W-L chart by listing things
that they know about endangered
species and what they want to
know. Have them keep the charts
at their desks so that they can
complete the what is learned
section at the end of the lesson.
Endangered Species lesson
A second factor leading to wildlife endangerment is hunting and trading. Some
wild animals are highly prized by hunters for reasons ranging from use of ivory
in elephants to the use of animals in the entertainment industry, to hunting
purely for sport. In the case of orangutans, the animals are often sold illegally
to be kept as pets or for use in entertainment. Several of the orangutans at the
Indianapolis Zoo have come to us after spending years in the entertainment
industry. Rocky, for example, was once the most frequently used orangutan
in U.S. marketing, having been in commercials and even a photo spread with
Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas. Unfortunately, wild orangutans are captured
when they are very young (sometimes just a few days old) so that they can be
raised by humans and their fiercely protective orangutan mothers are killed
during the capture.
Sometimes animals become extinct when a new species is introduced into
a habitat. Frequently this occurs when a predatory species is introduced to
control an overpopulation. One remarkable example of this activity occurred
on Marion Island near South Africa. In 1949, five cats were brought to the
island to control the population of mice. Less than 30 years later, these five cats
had produced 3400 offspring which had endangered the local bird population!
A growing threat to wildlife is the presence of parasites, any organism that
feeds off of another species. The fungus that causes Dutch elm disease,
for example, has caused the destruction of huge populations of elm trees
throughout Europe and North America.
Activity:
Animal Scramble
Have each of your students find an
endangered animal and scramble
the letters in the animal’s name.
Compose a worksheet with the
scrambled names and have each
student try to list each animal
correctly. Younger students may
find pictures of endangered animals
and play a memory match game,
matching the picture with the
animal name.
Activity:
Have students research any
threatened or endangered animals
in your area. The United States
Fish and Wildlife Service Midwest
Region website has information
listed by county at
http://www.fws.gov/midwest/
endangered/lists/indiana-spp.html.
As a class, design a project to
take action to help the species.
One example is building and
installing bat boxes to protect bat
populations.
Additional activities may
include in-depth research about
an endangered animal and what is
being done to save them; graphing
populations of endangered,
threatened and vulnerable species;
endangered species bingo
(http://arkive.org/education/
teaching-resources-7-11); or
coloring pictures of endangered
species (http://www.epa.gov/espp/
coloring/).
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Orangutan Writing Prompts
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Grades 2-4
• Would an orangutan make a good pet? Write a persuasive paragraph(s),
giving specific details to support your opinion.
• Why is the rainforest important for an orangutan’s survival. Write an
informative paragraph(s) to explain.
Grades 5-8
• The rainforest supports plant and animal species, including humans, in
many different ways by providing shelter, food, and raw materials. What
would happen to these species if the rainforest vanished? How would life for
humans be different without rainforests?
• The word orangutan means “person of the forest” in the Malay language
of Indonesia. Do you think this is appropriate for the animal? Compare
and contrast humans and orangutans, focusing on physical characteristics,
intelligence, and social structure.
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