Elephants in Crisis - The Ivory Trade. Scheme of work for KS2.

A short unit of work designed for Key Stage 2 on elephants and the ivory trade. Each lesson is planned to take an hour, although there is plenty of opportunity to shorten or lengthen activities. This topic has many cross-curricular links, with strong links to the Science, English Geography, SMSC and Citizenship curriculums.

Context:
Elephants are in crisis. A century ago there were an estimated five million elephants in Africa. Today, there are less than half a million. An average of 55 elephants are killed by poachers every day for their tusks. That’s about one every 25 minutes. Many experts have predicted that, unless poaching can be effectively addressed, elephants could all but disappear from many of Africa’s wild places in the coming decades.
Born Free has been campaigning for a global ban on the trade in ivory since 1989. Our field work means we have experienced first-hand the brutal aftermath of poaching and the pressures that elephants face. We carry out crucial work in Cameroon, Ethiopia and Kenya to support the monitoring and protection of wild elephant populations, gaining invaluable insights to their behaviour and undeniable intelligence.

Lesson 1 - Incredible elephants.

• To share knowledge of elephants
• To understand how elephants and humans share similar characteristics
• To create a poem entitled ‘Incredible Elephants’

Lesson 2 - The ivory trade

• To explain why ivory is in demand
• To explain the causes and effects of the international trade in illegal ivory
• To begin to identify solutions to the illegal trade in ivory.

Lesson 3 - Solutions

• To describe why elephants are an important species that need protecting
• To evaluate a range of ways of protecting elephants
• To write a persuasive speech for a targeted audience.

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To find out more about Born Free’s Education Programme, email education@bornfree.org.uk