How to Take an Elephant's Temperature
Peggy Thomas

​This Minute is kind of gross and kind of cool all at the same time.  Exactly the right blend for kids!  Peggy Thomas knows exactly how to get our students excited about learning - even when it means sticking her hand up an elephant’s rear end!

English/Language Arts
Explore word choice  -  “show, don’t tell”

• Peggy Thomas does a masterful job of choosing her words to paint a picture for the reader.  We know she is nervous, not because she tells us, but because her “knees shake” 

Explore persuasive writing

• Author Thomas talks about elephants in terms of abuse, dwindling population, loss of habitat and poaching.  Have students talk about these topics as issues that people may have strong opinions about.  Is animal abuse a problem we should spend money on?  How do we balance what we spend between animal abuse and child abuse?  Are they comparable?  Should we treat them equally?  Should these problems be tackled with public or private funds?  If the problem does not exist where students live (there are no native elephants in the US), should we still be concerned as part of a global community?  This Minute gives us many great opportunities for teaching our students about issues and developing a framework for thinking about them.  Take that thinking and transfer it to persuasive writing.

​Social Studies
Explore World Geography

• Look for Thailand on the globe.  Have students use directional vocabulary to describe where it is relative to China...to Australia...to the United States.  Look at the topography of Thailand - is it mostly flat?  Mountainous?  Rivers?  Proximity to oceans?  

Explore Describing Location

• Use this opportunity to introduce or reinforce the concept of latitude and longitude to describe relative location.  Explore the use of these systems in Global Positioning Systems.  Demonstrate how GPS systems in phones can use coordinates instead of addresses for location.

​STEM
Explore Biology - Animals

• Asian vs. African elephants - what is the difference?  Use this opportunity to take the differences started in the Minute and chart them with other differences your students find through research and reading.

Explore measuring systems - temperature

• Fahrenheit vs. Celsius - talk to students about the origin of different systems of measure.  Why would we need to measure temperature?  Use this Minute as an opportunity for problem solving.  Give students temperatures in Fahrenheit and Celsius and see if they can collaborate to figure out a formula for conversion.  They might just surprise you!

Research Skills
Explore Subscription Databases

• Have students check out the school or state’s subscription databases to research some of the questions posed in the Social Studies or Science sections above.

Explore Google hacks

• Did you know you can convert all kinds of things by simply typing them into Google’s search bar?  Try it!  Type in:
  • Fahrenheit to Celsius
  • Miles to Kilometers
  • US dollars to Thai baht

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© Karen Sterling, 2017 - May be used for educational purposes without written permission