Never too young to learn about polar bears

By Andrea Gacich
Teacher
We started by reading about the little polar bear Knut, who was born in the Berlin Zoo in December 2006, and imagined what it would be like to take care of such a cute little fur ball. Reading about baby polar bears, looking at photos and watching documentaries, such as National Geographic’s Masters of the Arctic Ice, awoke interest and love for these animals in the little learners in my class. Their appetite for knowledge grew by the day; the kids started to bring pictures of polar bear cut out of papers, magazines and calendars. Within no time we had a collection of stuffed polar bears in the classroom. The week we learned about the life cycle, about what polar bears look like at birth and how they develop in the den, the kids liked to place the smaller bears a little under the big one so that it would look like they are nursing.

(c) Andrea Gacich
Our learning was not restricted to reading and writing about polar bears. We tried to capture these beautiful animals in water colours, plasticine, and a discovery of warm and cold colours. We cut out polar bears from fun fur, created plasticine models of global warming, built polar bear faces from clay, and created a wall hanging depicting a mother and her two cubs, almost in life size.

Eventually, it was our discussions and learning about how we can fight global warming that gave us the idea to raise some money. Being inspired by a fundraiser for tigers, I found and ordered polar bear cookie cutters, and organized an enthusiastic group of moms who baked with 36 students for one day, by the end of which they had baked and decorated about 200 cookies. A little bit of advertisement in the school prepared all 237 kids and the staff for the big cookie sale. Within 30 minutes all cookies had been sold, in addition to some 20 brownies that had also been donated. We had raised $255.00
And this is our story. We love polar bears and wanted to do a little bit to help. We may not have raised a lot of money but we are hoping that we raised some awareness.
[WWF’s polar bear expert Pete Ewins visited Andrea’s class to accept this generous donation in person. Thanks to these students for helping support our conservation work!]