Where Science, Literacy & Numeracy Meet the Real World
The most common question I get asked, when I introduce my business is ‘what on Earth is that?’
This is a question I always struggle with as the short answer is, there is no short answer. I generally mumble something about Animal Assisted Education (AAE), and I adore what I do and hope that is enough to satisfy polite societal conventions.
If that doesn’t satisfy the enquirer, then I see that as a green light to throw myself into an excited, verbal ramble with examples of what I do, how I do it and my many animal partners I am very privileged to share these experiences with. This is normally accompanied by a significant amount of time scrolling through my phone gallery to share many, many photos.
I have worked for the past six years in a field known as Animal Assisted Education, but not in the common capacity that anyone who has existing knowledge may think of. The general view of Animal Assisted Education is that of reading dogs, therapy dogs in schools or animals and students working together to improve social functioning, responsible pet ownership or improve cognitive skills. This is where things get interesting, as although my sessions can enhance those aspects of a learners journey, that is not the end goal. Our end goal is to teach Science, Literacy and Numeracy through the real world context of animals.
Each session has a defined outcome with objectives to achieve that outcome, in exactly the same way a school or college would set out a lesson. However, many of our students have found a school or college environment may be unable to meet their needs, whether they be educational or emotional. We are lucky to be in a society that has made huge moves forward to identify neurodiversity and mental health differences, but sometimes these cannot be catered for in their entirety within the current educational system. The impact of this can be devastating for the learner and for their network of family, carers and friends. Students who want to learn, who have a desire to investigate, enquire, question and evaluate, may not get the opportunity to do that as they cannot access the curriculum in the same way as others. So I looked at what I love and how I could morph and mould those things together, I love teaching Science and I love animals. I just happen to be very lucky that a love of animals is one that a large number of other people also have. I also love Land Rovers, but sadly that seemed to be fairly niche and of little interest to many of my students!
The easiest way to explain is to demonstrate and so I thought it best to include some examples from sessions, to give a better idea. The first photo is of one of my dogs, Jeff, carrying out one of his favourite activities, jumping into water and swimming. As all of my sessions are online through a unique whiteboard classroom, I can teach my students from anywhere, including the local pond. My students love to see my dogs having fun especially when there is an element of me getting wet in the process, apparently that is highly amusing. We can use Jeff jumping into water in a number of different ways. We can draw free body diagrams using still screenshots from the lesson in Physics, we can look at the dilution of different chemicals in the water, or we can look at the antagonistic pairs of muscles Jeff uses to launch himself off the side. For this particular session we looked at the link between Gravitational Potential Energy and Kinetic Energy, which allowed us to calculate a velocity at which Jeff may have hit the water. This is what is known as a multistep equation in GCSE physics and normally comes with either 5 or 6 marks attached in an exam. In my experience, students with a phobia of Physics have a huge amount of anxiety around the use of not one, but two equations to find an answer. If you add in a real world example, with an animal they love clearly having fun, all of a sudden the theory comes to life.
Another example was a recent incident where my donkey, Ferdinand had his stable blocked by a large bale of hay. Whilst Ferdie wasn’t particularly upset by the arrival of a wall of snacks, we were able to use this as a learning tool. We were able to take measurements of the stable and bale of hay and use those measurements to create a scale, such as the ones used on maps. My student was then able to recreate a 2D scale diagram of the stable and bale on paper from the comfort of their own home, this was in the winter, so I was a little jealous of their giant hoodie and central heating while I was measuring a stable.
Once again, this real world context gave us the opportunity to practice a skill that can be very difficult for students to grasp and imagine. My student didn’t need to use their imagination, as we were online and we could test out their scale. We looked at what scale they had given, and using that I could predict the size of their diagram and likewise, I could give them a size in centimetres of another part of the yard and they could convert that in to meters. All while Ferdinand was happily trying to eat his way out of his predicament. We could make develop a skill, make predictions and test those predictions, all due to one unusual event.
What is the end outcome?
How will I make sure the animals and students are safe & how will I continually check they consent to the session?
Will it be fun?
That is a huge simplification of the work that goes in to planning a session. The section of the syllabus needs to be selected, then worked into an animal context and then linked back to allow the student to answer exam questions which will have a different context. I don’t want to bore you with all of the intricacies of planning and reworking, and each session is very much dependent on the student, the animals, the direction of the wind, if anyone is hungry, has my sock fallen down in my wellie….I think you get the picture.
I think it is important to mention that I follow a very strict set of guidelines when I plan out sessions and work with my animals; I don’t like to use the term work for my animals, but I have yet to find a suitable alternative. Currently there are no laws or regulations covering the field of Animal Assisted Interventions (AAI), if you want to do yoga with puppies, swim with dolphins, walk horses through mazes, there is no, one, governing body checking the welfare standards, work environment or general health and stress of those animals. As a fully assessed member of Animal Assisted Intervention Internation (AAII), I adhere to very strict guidelines covering animal welfare. If you are going to seek the assistance of animals in any capacity, looking for adherence to those rules would be a good place to begin.
Likewise, there aren’t any formal qualifications in this field. As I am an educator I completed a Bachelor’s degree in Equine Dental Science then I completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Education achieving Qualified Teacher Status. From here I passed the assessment and completed the a portfolio of evidence, to be awarded Advanced Skill Teacher status in Science Education. I followed this with a Graduate Certificate in Physics and then moved on to complete a Masters in Research in Anthrozoology. As you can imagine. This took a long time and a significant financial outlay, but I would do it all again in a heartbeat.
As you can see, there is no short answer to the unique business I run. However, I generally end the conversation with…
animals are the greatest teachers, so my animals teach while I facilitate.
Main – Photo by Elimende Inagella on Unsplash
