Te Nukuao Wellington Zoo offers a range of unique learning workshops with our experienced Zoo Educators, from ECE age all the way up to Year 13. A Learning Workshop at the Zoo provides ākonga with the chance to meet some amazing animals, both global and native, to help them understand the role of a progressive Zoo and learn how they can care for animals and the environment.
The Zoo is an Enriching Local Curriculum (ELC), funded by the Ministry of Education. This means we can offer specialized learning experiences to schools and ECE groups at reduced prices.
Animal Adaptations - Year 11
Year 9 - 13 | Animals and Welfare
How do animals’ adaptations help them survive? Discover and observe how different adaptations help animals maintain their way of life.
Activities on this day
How do mammals find, process and digest their food? Students will examine adaptations of mammal consumers, whether they are herbivores, carnivores or omnivores, and find out how these adaptations help them survive in the wild.
Learning Outcomes
• Identify mammal consumers as herbivore, carnivore or omnivore and explore differences in digestion.
• Relate mammals’ structural features to their way of life and ability to survive.
NZ Curriculum
Science: Living World
• Life processes Level 6: Relate key structural features and functions to the life processes of plants, animals, and micro-organisms and investigate environmental factors that affect these processes.
Related NCEA Standards:
Biology 1.5: AS90929: Demonstrate understanding of biological ideas relating to a mammal(s) as a consumer(s). (3 credits, External)
Animal Adaptations - Year 12
Year 9 - 13 | Animals and Welfare
How do animals’ adaptations help them survive? Discover and observe how different adaptations help animals maintain their way of life.
Activities on this day
Observe how animals adapt their way of life in relation to their life processes, habitat and relationship with other organisms.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify and explain structural, physiological and behavioural adaptations in response to life processes.
- Understand how adaptations relate to physical habitat, reproductive strategies and relationships with other organisms.
NZ Curriculum
Science: Living World
• Life processes Level 7: Explore the diverse ways in which animals and plants carry out the life processes.
• Ecology and evolution Level 7: Explain how the interaction between ecological factors and natural selection leads to genetic changes within populations.
Related NCEA Standards:
Biology 2.3: AS91155: Demonstrate understanding of adaptation of plants or animals to their way of life. (3 credits, Internal)
Animal Adaptations - Years 9-10
Year 9 - 13 | Animals and Welfare
How do animals’ adaptations help them survive? Discover and observe how different adaptations help animals maintain their way of life
Activities on this day
How do animals survive? What features help them find food, avoid predators, and reproduce? Explore the relationship between animals’ habitats and the different types of adaptations, and discover how natural variation and habitat change can encourage or discourage particular adaptations.
Learning Outcomes
• Identify and explain structural, physiological and behavioural adaptations in response to life processes.
• Understand how adaptations relate to physical habitat, reproductive strategies and relationships with other organisms.
• Describe the importance of variation in a changing environment
NZ Curriculum
Science: Living World
• Ecology Level 3-4: Explain how living things are suited to their particular habitat and how they respond to environmental changes, both natural and human-induced.
• Ecology Level 5: Investigate the interdependence of living things (including humans) in an ecosystem.
• Evolution Level 3-4: Explore how the groups of living things we have in the world have changed over long periods of time and appreciate that some living things in New Zealand are quite different from living things in other areas of the world.
• Evolution Level 5: Describe the basic processes by which genetic information is passed from one generation to the next.
Animal Behaviour - Years 11-12
Year 9 - 13 | Animals and Welfare
Why do animals behave like, well, animals? Discover and observe the key concepts of animal behaviour and see theory become practice.
Activities on this day
Examine the key concepts of animal behaviour and how we encourage natural behaviours of the animals in our care. Discuss the role of Zoo habitat design and enrichment in encouraging natural behaviours.
Learning Outcomes
• Identify and explain how animals’ behaviours influence their ways of life.
• Discuss how behavioural adaptations enable animals to occupy an environmental niche.
NZ Curriculum
Science: Living World
Life processes Level 6: Relate key structural features and functions to the life processes of plants, animals, and micro-organisms and investigate environmental factors that affect these processes.
Evolution Level 6: Explain the importance of variation with a changing environment
Life processes Level 7: Explore the diverse ways in which animals and plants carry out life processes.
Animal Behaviour - Years 9-10
Year 9 - 13 | Animals and Welfare
Why do animals behave like, well, animals? Discover and observe the key concepts of animal behaviour and see theory become practice.
Activities on this day
Examine the key concepts of animal behaviour and how we encourage natural behaviours of the animals in our care. Discuss the role of Zoo habitat design and enrichment in encouraging natural behaviours.
Learning Outcomes
• Identify ways animals behave for different reasons
• Give examples of how natural behaviour is encouraged.
• Explain how we use behavioural training to take care of Zoo animals
NZ Curriculum
Science: Living World
Life processes Level 4:
• Recognise that there are life processes common to all living things and that these occur in different ways.
Ecology Level 5:
• Investigate the interdependence of living things (including humans) in an ecosystem
Animal Welfare and Ethics - Years 9-13
Year 9 - 13 | Animals and Welfare
What is animal welfare and is it different for different species, or in different places? Discuss real-life examples of ethics in Zoos and learn how we use the Five Domains of Animal Welfare to assess animals in our care.
Activities on this day
Navigate the complex issues around ethics and animal welfare in Zoo, using a selection of case studies. Engage your brains and decide if you would make the tough calls using your head, your heart, or both.
Learning Outcomes
• Investigate aspects of animal welfare in human care
• Discuss in detail how the Zoo uses the 5 Domains of Animal Welfare
• Explore ethical arguments and different perspectives on animal welfare using case studies
NZ Curriculum
Social Sciences:
- Social Studies Level 5: Understand how people’s management of resources impacts on environmental and social sustainability
- Geography Level 6: Understand that natural and cultural environments have particular characteristics and how environments are shaped by processes that create spatial patterns
Science: Nature of Science
- Participating and contributing Level 5&6: Develop an understanding of socio-scientific issues by gathering relevant scientific information in order to draw evidence-based conclusions and to take actions where appropriate.
Science: Living World
- Life processes, ecology and evolution Level 8: Understand how humans manipulate the transfer of genetic information from one generation to the next and make informed judgements about the social, ethical and biological implications relating to this manipulation
