Why animals need a healthy diet
Description
Zookeepers talk about the diet needed to keep a gorilla and a penguin healthy. A healthy diet gives the animals energy and helps them to recover from illness. Gorillas are vegetarian and eat a large variety of fruit and vegetables. Chestnut is a six-month-old penguin who has been hand-reared. He eats 20 to 30 fish each day and is very hungry and demanding. If the penguin did not eat he would lose body weight, become ill and eventually die.
Classroom Ideas
After watching this clip students could be told that they are going to take on the role of zoo keepers for the day. Working in small groups, students could each be assigned an animal to look after and plan their daily food consumption. This will require groups to research the food sources of their assigned animal, and ensure they are providing it with enough of the correct food to keep them healthy. Students could also consider how they will feed the animals, for example the lions cannot be fed in the same way as Chestnut the penguin.
Living things
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