Humane Educational Curriculum

Online Humane Educational Curriculum

Why Humane Education?

• Pets are a part of our community and a part of many families. We want to teach children how to care for pets and treat all animals humanely as part of character and citizenship education.
• Animal abuse has been shown to be directly linked to bullying and domestic violence. Childhood cruelty towards animals can lead to violence against humans. Educating children early about humane issues can break this cycle.
• Many topics within the Alberta K-12 curriculum lend themselves to using humane issues as the content to teach various concepts and skills.
• As children are usually very interested in animals, humane education usually has a high interest level.

What is available?

As this kind of material can be time consuming to locate and organize, we have prepared thirteen lesson plan idea units each including:

• Specific learning objectives and rationales for each unit
• Clear connections to the Alberta Education Program of Studies
• Teaching strategies and tips, interesting activities and detailed background materials for teachers and students
• Focus on interesting and fun ways to learn about pets and their needs, especially in the units for elementary students (There is one unit dealing with the more serious issues around animal cruelty that is geared to older students.)
• Activities and handouts ready to go in PDF form (independent reading levels identified using Flesch Kincaid)
• Recommended websites for further information

Support from Cochrane & Area Humane Society staff and volunteers to:

• Explain and discuss lesson ideas and resources
• Update resources
• Visit your school to present any portion of any unit

Is it reproducible?

We have obtained copyright permissions from many other humane organizations. All of the material included in our curriculum is reproducible for educational purposes as long as the material is not altered in any way and the source is clearly identifiable. The Cochrane & Area Humane Society does not necessarily endorse all of the views expressed in material obtained from other humane organizations.

If you identify any copyright concerns, please contact us at educ@cochranehumane.ca

Overview of Lesson Plan Units

The "Topic" field in the table below links to the full lesson plan page.

Subject	Grade Level	Topic	Focus	Example Activities
ELA	1 - 3	Animal Heroes	How animals help us, e.g. seeing eye dogs, therapy animals, explosive sniffers, etc.	Reading/listening and responding to stories , creating stories
ELA	4-6	Animal Heroes	How animals help us, e.g. seeing eye dogs, therapy animals, explosive sniffers, etc. Research, interview, discuss How animals are portrayed as heroes in true stories and in fiction Discussing stories, creative writing How stereotyping of animals in literature and movies affects our attitudes Reading books, writing book reviews
ELA	7-9, 10-12	Controversial Humane Issues	Controversial issues: breed bans, use of animals in research, animals in entertainment, and the link between animal abuse and family violence	Discuss, research, present and debate
Math	4-6	The Economics of Pet Ownership	The cost of pet ownership and the commitment needed to own a pet	Estimating and calculating costs using addition, multiplication, averages Making bar charts
Math	4-6	Pet Math	Pet overpopulation, spay/neuter issues	Numeric operations and problem solving, focus on addition and multiplication Surveying and graphing
Health & Life Skills	4-6	The Human-Animal Bond	The human-animal bond and how that animals have emotions like people	Respond to stories, create endings, role play
Health & Life Skills	K-3	Bite Prevention	What can cause dogs to bite and how to be safe	Recognizing pictures of friendly and unfriendly dogs Role playing to practice safe behaviour
Health & Life Skills CALM	4-8 10-12	Animal Careers	Careers that involve animals	Read, research, discuss and present
Science	1,3 3	Pet Care	Pet needs and how to care for them	Draw, discuss, active games, role play Making a tool or diorama
Science	2	Hot Dogs & Cool Cats	The effects of extreme temperatures on pets	Discuss, take and record temperatures
Science	4 7	Pets in the Environment	Wastes associated with pets and how we can be environmentally responsible pet owners Do surveys, make posters, pet toys How pets can affect our environment. Research, investigate, present
Social Studies	K-2	Good Neighbour Pets	How being a responsible pet owner is part of good citizenship	Identify information from pictures, role play
Social Studies	3-7	Animal Shelters and Volunteerism	Why we have animal shelters and what roles they play in our community Discuss, interview, research, decision making games Learning through volunteerism Plan and implement a community service project for animals

Additional Resources

• Alberta SPCA - website with more lesson plans linked to the K-12 Curriculum including elementary French, music and art.
• Alberta SPCA Learning to Care through Kindness to Animals - A guide for teachers

If you would like to help us out by providing feedback about the curriculum, please make use of our online feedback form

Contact us: For more information contact educ@cochranehumane.ca

© Cochrane & Area Humane Society.
All Rights Reserved except where specifically noted that material has been reproduced with permission from other sources. For more information contact: Cochrane & Area Humane Society, 62 Griffin Industrial Point, Cochrane, AB - T4C 0A3 (403) 932-2072