Resources for Teachers and Classroom Presenters
PETA’s Humane Education Dept., “TeachKind”
PETA has an extensive humane education activity with resources and information on almost any and all animal issues one can imagine. The resources are divided into grade levels and teachers/humane educators have a wide variety of choices of topics within each grade level. They also have several full-time humane educators willing and anxious to help interested parties in starting or advancing humane education activities.
From Peta’s website:
Welcome to TeachKind, PETA’s humane-education division! We’re here to help schools and educators promote kindness and compassion for animals through free lesson plans, classroom presentations, materials, advice, online resources, and more. Teaching kids to have empathy for all beings is a big step toward building a better, more compassionate world. Check out TeachKind’s resources and start teaching animal rights now!
We work with hundreds of teachers and school staff across the country to help them incorporate humane education into their lesson plans, start animal-rights clubs, replace animal dissection with humane alternatives, get healthy vegan options in their cafeterias, and more.
We provide schools with free educational materials and even host classroom presentations on many different animal rights issues. Whether you want to get your entire school district to ban field trips to the circus or just want some information on teaching kids about vegan eating, TeachKind is here to answer your questions and provide free resources so that you can make a difference for animals.
We know that educators have the power to plant seeds that can grow into a passion for helping others, so we want to make humane education easy. We hope that with TeachKind, you’ll find what you need to bring animal rights into your school!
In addition to providing you with great online resources, we’re also available to speak at your school! If you’re located in Southern California or the Bay Area, we can appear in person — and if not, we can arrange to give a presentation via Skype!
All of our presentations are based on age and grade level, and we’ll work with you on any issue that you feel passionate about bringing into the classroom — from the importance of spaying and neutering companion animals to all the reasons why students should never go to a circus that uses animals.
Lessons Designed for Elementary and Middle School Levels (up to grade 6):
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- Amazing Arctic Animals. Printable Mini Book and Activity
- Grammar Packet: Compassionate Nouns and Verbs Worksheets
- Valentine’s Day Activity: What Do Animals Love?
- Black History Month Activities: Celebrate Civil Rights Leaders Who Have Stood Up for Humans AND Other Animals
- What Winter Is Like When You’re a ‘Backyard Dog’
- Nouns: Animals Don’t Belong in the ‘Thing’ Category
- Activity: Santa’s First Vegan Christmas
- Truly Awesome Turkeys: A Thanksgiving Lesson
- Make Math Fun (and Tasty!) With Vegan Food Manipulatives
- Community Helpers Can Be Heroes for Animals, Too! (Grades Pre-K–1)
- Tilikum: Casualty of Confinement (Grades 3–5)
- Orcas Belong in the Ocean (Grades K-2)
- Woody: A Survivor’s Story (Grades 3-5, English and Spanish)
- Not Just Part of the Flock! (Grades K-2, English and Spanish)
- Humane Science Lessons for Teachers
- Teach Compassion With TeachKind’s ‘Share the World’
- How Littering Hurts Animals
- Send Love to Orcas This Valentine’s Day
- Learning Compassion From Martin Luther King Jr. (K–6)
- Activities and Essays for Elementary and Middle School Students
- Humane Science Projects
- It’s Raining Cats and Dogs!
- Create Your Own Animal Masks
- Thanksgiving Class Project: Give Turkeys a Hand!
- An Elephant’s Life
- A Rat’s Life
- A Chicken’s Life
- A Cow’s Life
- Animals Don’t Belong in Labs
- ‘We’re All Animals’ Coloring Sheets
- How Your School Can Help Chained Dogs
- Where Do Eggs Come From? (Kindergarten–5th Grade)
- ‘Let’s Ask the Animals’ (Video)
- ‘Don’t Be a Wooly Bully’ Lesson Plan (Video)
- ‘Help Tilly the Orca’ (Video)
- FREE TeachKind Materials
Lessons Designed for Secondary School Levels (6,7 – 12):
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- Debate Kit: Should Animals Be Used in Experiments?
- Captivity Kills—SeaWorld Exposed (Grades 6–12)
- From Sheep to Sweater—the True Cost of Wool (Grades 6–12, English and Spanish)
- Humane Science Lessons for Teachers
- Help Free Chimpanzees Tootie, Louie, and Joe
- How Littering Hurts Animals
- Animal Rights and Women’s Rights (VIDEO)
- Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. (Grades 7–12)
- Chew on This: Reasons to Go Vegetarian (Video)
- Research and Discussion Topics for High School Students
- Conflict Resolution
- Humane Science Projects
- Making Kind Choices: Animal Testing
- ‘Their Future in Your Hands’ (Video)
- How Your School Can Help Chained Dogs
- Wool Is Cruel: The Truth About Wool (Video)
- Where Do Eggs Come From? (Grades 6–12)
- Help Homeless Animals in Shelters (Video)
- Ask SeaWorld to Release Its Prisoners!
- FREE TeachKind Materials
In addition to lesson plans designed for humane education presentations, PETA has extensive libraries on many other animal topics: dissection and alternatives, diet and health, factory farming, wildlife issues such as hunting and poaching, trapping, feral cats, circuses, zoos, marine mammals, fish and aquaculture, dogs, cats, horses, and many more.