Main Menu

About this resource

St John's Local Learning


3 – Bristol Zoo and its Historic Landscape

Aim – to produce lesson plans that are;
  • cross curricular
  • developing literacy skills at all levels
  • using the zoo as a resource
  • tailored to each year group
Possible activities - Based on Bristol Zoo
  • Research favourite tree (additional link)
  • Write/ tell a tree’s life story (from tree’s perspective)
  • Changing role of the zoo through time
    changing attitudes towards the zoo
    changing animals' environment
  • Changing patronage of the zoo through time
  • Forecast for the future
    How will the zoo have changed over the next 100 years?
    Pictures of specific areas, maps, written/ spoken descriptions.
  • Persuasive speech to preserve/change aspects of the zoo/animal rights and conditions
  • Imaginative writing - time travel
    a) Patrons Brunel, Wills, Frys travel to the present
    b) Pupils travel back to Victorian zoo or the pre zoo landscape (Limekiln)
  • Compare Monkey Temple to Gorilla Island
    The Jungle Book symolises old style zoo in the context of Darwinism, man's supremacy
  • Write your own Just So story
  • Zoo poetry
  • Past images of the zoo
  • Design adverts for original zoological gardens - consider target audience - compare with modern advert
  • Interviewing and collecting oral testimonies about the zoo in the past