Animal Aid

Lesson ideas

• Key stage 3
• Key stage 4

Citizenship KS3 – Circus debate

Provide students with extracts from the Great British Circus website and the Captive Animals Protection Society website plus copies of the Animal Aid circus factsheet and Kent Courier article. Ask them to draw up a list of the key arguments both for and against allowing performing animals in circuses. (For this, they could be divided into two teams – for and against.) Ask them to imagine the Great British Circus is coming to town and to draw up a plan for either how they might peacefully campaign against it or how they might organise publicity to promote the animal circus.

• Download the Kent Courier article

For anti-animal circus info

• Animal Aid
• Download the Animal Aid circus factsheet
• Captive Animals Protection Society

For pro-animal circus info

• Great British Circus
• European Circus Association

Some ideas for campaigning against the circus

• Write a letter to your local newspaper, asking people to boycott the circus and explaining why.
• Produce a leaflet asking people to boycott the circus and explaining why.
• Ask local shops that have circus posters on display to take them down.
• Produce a petition against performing animals in circuses and collect signatures.
• Design an information display for your school library or local public library.
• If the circus has been ‘fly posting’ or attaching notices to barriers at road crossings, complain to your local council.
• Oganise a peaceful protest outside the circus and leaflet people going in.
• Write to your MP asking him or her to support a ban on performing animals in circuses.

KS4: Citizenship/Geography: Super-dairy debate

1. Outline Norton Dairies’ proposal (rejected by the council) to create a super-dairy in Nocton Heath and the campaign that developed in opposition to it.
2. Discussion points:
   • Why do some farmers and food producers think that there is a need for super-large intensive dairy farms?
   • Why do some people oppose the development of such farms?
   • Is it right that many people object to factory farming, yet often demand cheap milk?
   • What is the role of supermarkets in food production policy?
   • Is it relevant that most people don’t realise that the vast majority of cows already spend much of the year inside sheds?
   • Would it be ethical to genetically engineer new types of dairy cows to increase productivity?
3. Role-play: organise students into groups. Ask them to investigate the issues and then to present their case at an imaginary council meeting.
4. Follow-up: Ask students to write an email/letter to their MP, either for or against super-dairies.

Useful links

• Guardian newspaper article about the super-dairy
• The Grocer magazine
• The Farmers Guardian newspaper
• Factory farming pages on Animal Aid's youth website
• The Ecologist magazine

Citizenship KS4 -pressure groups: ‘X Factor’-style hunt debate

Lessons 1 and 2:

Unit 6 (Campaigning for change) and unit 7 (Pressure groups) from Animal Aid’s Eat This! Student Activities resource pack.

Lesson 3:

Outline the current political situation on hunting. Invite speakers from Animal Aid and the Countryside Alliance to make the case for and against repealing the hunt ban.

Lessons 4:

We have assumed a 1 hour lesson time for timings given below, please adjust as needed.

‘X Factor’-style hunt debate: 5 minutes

Divide students into three or five groups of four to six people each. One group takes on the role of the judges. Half of the remaining groups take on the role of a pressure group campaigning for repeal of the hunt ban, while the others represent a campaigning organisation that is opposed to repeal.

Give each group copies of the Hunt Ban information sheets and Hunt Ban worksheets (set of four A3 sheets linked below). You may also wish to supply groups with leaflets, factsheets or printouts from relevant pressure groups (see below for web-links).

Preparation: 20 minutes

Ask each of the pressure groups to outline their plan for a campaign to keep or repeal the hunt ban. Working as a team, their tasks include:

• Identifying the key target groups for their campaign, plus the main arguments and methods they will adopt.
• Creating a slogan.
• Designing a car sticker, poster or T-shirt or writing a rap.
• Preparing a brief (four minute) presentation outlining their campaign strategy to the class. The judging panel’s task is to prepare probing questions to ask each pressure group (in the style of the BBC programme ‘Newsnight’).

Presentations: (4 groups x 7 minutes per talk) 30 minutes

Allow each group to give their presentation to the class. Allow 4 minutes for the presentation and 3 minutes for questions from the judges and other teams.

Judging: 5 minutes

Ask the judges to give their verdict on each of the groups’ campaigns and to nominate the most effective and best-prepared presentation as the winner.

Useful web-links:

Anti hunt

• League Against Cruel Sports
• Campaign for Decency
• Save Me

Pro hunt

• Countryside Alliance
• Master of Foxhounds Association
• Support Foxhunting

Citizenship KS4

Set students the task of using the Issues section on the Animal Aid youth website to identify and research an issue that they feel strongly about. Using the Letter Writing/Emailing section, ask them to compose their protest letter or email.