The German Animal Welfare Federation provides additional teaching material for the school subjects of ethics and philosophy in lower, middle and upper secondary schools. The federation has developed six independent 90-minute teaching units based on selected aspects of animal welfare from the subject area "Agriculture". Teachers who would like to use this focus in their own lessons can download the material free of charge.
"With these teaching units, we want to encourage pupils to question industrial animal husbandry and develop a sense of how people should behave towards animals. They also learn about the machinery behind the meat, sausage and eggs that are sold in supermarkets. The teaching material uses age-appropriate methods to help children and young people in years 5 to 13 develop their own point of view and rethink their consumption decisions," says Irmina Theuß, project manager at the German Animal Welfare Federation.
Six teaching suggestions are freely available to download from the website https://unterricht.tierschutzbund.de. Teachers can find the materials "Broiler chicken farming in Germany" and "Comparison of pets and animals in agriculture" for the lower school, "Our treatment of cattle" for the middle school and "Chicks in agriculture" and "Dilemmas of the dairy cattle industry" for the upper school.
The teaching material is based on the grammar school curriculum and is suitable for nationwide use. Teachers have reviewed the concepts and elaborations and selected subject-related methods for a fully prepared double lesson. The materials each contain a short introduction and a tabular overview of the lesson plan with methods, social forms and lesson objectives. Background knowledge for the teacher is briefly and concisely summarized for the respective animal welfare topic. A detailed description of the lesson plan, the methods used, worksheets and suggestions for differentiation or digital implementation round off the package. Adaptations for a different age or performance level are possible.
About the youth work of the German Animal Welfare Federation
The German Animal Welfare Federation is the largest animal welfare umbrella organization in Germany. The federation uses scientific expertise to promote the value and need for protection of animals in a variety of ways. Education is a central component of this. For over ten years, the Youth Animal Welfare Department of the German Animal Welfare Federation has been developing and testing handouts for open youth work and for working groups, training interested people to become animal welfare teachers and developing educational material for teachers.
