Animals of the World:
An Internet Scavenger Hunt!

Where in the world do some animals live? Celebrate National Zoo and Aquarium Month by sending your students on an Internet scavenger hunt! They'll learn about the natural habitats of ten of the world's animals -- including some animals they've never heard of! Two versions! One for beginners and one for experienced surfers.

June is National Zoo and Aquarium Month -- a great time to introduce your students to some of the best zoo Web pages on the Internet.

If you haven't taken Education World's tour of online zoos yet, be sure to see our story, It's a Zoo Out There!)

To celebrate zoos, we've created a teaching master for you to use with your students. Use the teaching master to send your students off on an Internet scavenger hunt! They'll learn where in the world some common and uncommon animal species live. We're offering two versions of this scavenger hunt.

• Scavenger Hunt 1 provides beginning surfers with the complete URL for the Web page where they'll find the information they need. Students will gain practice typing URLs to get to the information they need.
• Scavenger Hunt 2 is for surfers who have some experience navigating the Web. They'll type a URL that will carry them to a zoo Web site, but they'll need to explore the Web site a bit to track down the information they need. (In one case -- at the Birmingham Zoo Web site -- students will even have the option of using a simple search engine to locate the animal they're searching for.)

Just print out the teaching master that's appropriate for your students and send them off on a safari they'll never forget! Students might work on their own or in groups to track down the natural habitats of these ten species.

Ready? Set?

• Scavenger Hunt 1, for beginners
• Scavenger Hunt 2, for experienced surfers

Scavenger Hunt 1
Where in the World?

DIRECTIONS: In which part of the world do some animals live? Look at the list of animals below. Some will be familiar to you, and others will not. Use the Internet to find where these animals live. To help you, we've provided you with the URL for a Web page where you can find the information you need. Write the name of the country or the continent where you find each animal.
Click here to view printable page.
 

NOTE: The links for the Oakland Zoo contained on the printable version of this scavenger hunt no longer work. Web sites often change URL structure as well as change and remove certain pages, and in this case, the Oakland Zoo has removed its AtoZ pages. Please visit OaklandZoo.com as it remains a tremendous resource for educational resources about animals.

© 2010 by Education World®. Permission is granted to teachers to reproduce this skill page for classroom use.

Scavenger Hunt 2
Where in the World?

DIRECTIONS: In which part of the world do some animals live? Look at the list of animals below. Some will be familiar to you, and others will not. Use the Internet to find where these animals live. To help you, we've provided you with the URL address for a Web site where you will find the information you need. You might need to wander around the Web site a bit to find the page that has information about each animal's natural habitat. Write the name of the country or continent where you find each animal.
Click here to view printable page.

BONUS!! Get a copy of a world map. (You might print one out on the back side of this paper.) Then number the animals above from 1 to 10. Put the number next to each animal on the world map to show where in the world that animal lives.

© 2010 by Education World®. Permission is granted to teachers to reproduce this skill page for classroom use.

Article by Gary Hopkins
Education World® Editor-in-Chief
Copyright © 2010 Education World

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