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Posted by PristinePets on September 27, 2002 at 20:17:45:
I have justed signed on to this forum and thought I would introduce myself. I am a special education teacher in Michigan for grades 6-8. My wife and I breed parrots as well as sugar gliders and have a pair of African Servals as future breeders. I have used our animals in my classroom continually and as of this year have incorporated them directly into the daily classroom routine. Our class consists of Emotionally impaired and learning disabled students, most are behavioral problems in the normal classes. We now have a colony of 5 beardies which we are raising to be breeders, a mature leopard gecko colony, hissing cockroaches, a pair of dart frogs, a razorback musk turtle, a veil chameleon, and a pair of crested geckos. The kids thrive on the animals and are excited to go out and teach the regular education classes about their pets. We use them in socail studies, studying their native lands. Science allows us to study their needs and environments. In Math we are charting growth and weight patterns. Lnaguage arts allows them to be used as a focus of numerous writing assignments as well as oral presentations. And of course Literature follows with the fact that they now actually check out books from the library and requests the librarian to order more reptile and basic animal information books.
There is nothing more enjoyable than seeing the responsibility and pride grow as they learn about their pets. Hopefully son this will go to a school wide reptile club, modeled after the teacher who helped me get started in the wonderful world of reptiles.
Scot
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