What a beastly mix-up! Animals from the Wild Animal Park are returned to the wilderness, but to the wrong places! Help Ms. Frizzle and her class return them to their natural habitats on a rescue adventure that spans the globe.
Click on the human skeleton to play Sherlock Bones. Click on the students or their pets to hear their reports. Click on the notebooks on the shelf to see 8 multimedia reports.
Go to the back of the bus to access science experiments, art activities, and fun facts about animals.
Homosapiens, lizards, etc
Southern North American Swamp
Swamp Things: Help Arnold the frog-kid swim around and eat flies while avoiding the snapping turtles who want to make lunch out of Arnold. Click on the pile of bones to do a skeleton puzzle.
Alligator, gray tree frog, parula warbler, bull frog, etc
Arctic Tundra and Ocean
Penguins on Ice: Don't slip! Guide the penguin across the ice from the North Pole to its home in the South Pole. Click on the pile of bones to do a skeleton puzzle.
Big Game Tag: Tag the animals that belong in each category before you run out of time or run out of tags. Click on the pile of bones to do a skeleton puzzle.
Lion, giraffe, zebra, flamingo, etc
Brazilian Tropical Rainforest
Swinging Snakes: Help Keesha, the anaconda, cross the river by making her jump from snake to snake. Click on the pile of bones to do a skeleton puzzle.
Anaconda, ocelot, opossum, tapir, capybara, etc
South Pacific Island & Reef
Picture Puzzle: Unscramble the puzzle to see cool animal photographs. Click on the pile of bones to do a skeleton puzzle.
Sea snakes, fruit bat, Tongan whistler, Norway rat, butterfly fish, etc
North American Sonoran Desert
Scat Sound Track: Scat Stevens hosts this wild and woolly game in which you'll learn about animal sounds, tracks, and more. Click on the pile of bones to do a skeleton puzzle.
Identify animals that live near your school, in local parks, or in students' backyards. Take field trips to a park or nature preserve, walk around the school grounds, or ask students to look in their backyards at home.
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In addition to searching for animals, have students look for holes in the ground, damage to trees or shrubs, nests in trees, ridges in the earth (molehills), tracks, scat (droppings), or other signs of an animal's presence. Make sure your students understand that they should observe wild animals with care, and only from a distance.
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Student teams can record the date, time, and temperature, as well as what they see, hear, and smell during their observations.
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Invite students to report on their observations in two ways: a scientific report and a poem.
Use the CD-ROM
Have students visit the desert to learn about a tiny owl.
How do zoos, aquariums, wildlife conservation organizations, and National Parks help animals?
Curriculum Links
Language arts; art
Activities
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Explain that zoos, aquariums, wildlife organizations, and National Parks help animal species whose numbers are greatly reduced and/or whose habitats are threatened by providing safe places to reproduce; teaching them survival skills; returning them to the wild; and preserving natural habitats.
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Have students write and illustrate a birth announcement for an endangered animal being protected in zoos (such as the black-footed ferret or California condor).
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Ask them to use the Internet to gather information. Visit, write, or access the web site of a local zoo, aquarium, wildlife conservation organization, or the National Park Service to find out more about their efforts to help animals and habitats.
Use the CD-ROM
Have students visit the seven habitats and look for misplaced animals. Then, return the animals to their correct habitats.
sieve; nutcracker; clear plastic straws; rubber bands; “blow-out” party favors; mortar and pestle; poster board; markers
Key Question
What are some ways animals eat?
Curriculum Links
Science; language arts; art
Activities
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Demonstrate selected house-hold items that simulate ways certain animals have adapted to getting food. Some examples include: a sieve for baleen whales who filter their food; pliers for the beaks of birds who crack nuts; a straight clear straw to represent a humming-bird's beak; "blow out" party favor to represent a frog's tongue; a mortar and pestle for deer who grind their teeth.
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Ask students to choose several animals and find out what they eat, how they eat, and where they find food. Have them create a "menu" for animals living in a certain habitat. Have students investigate another type of adaptation: how camouflage protects animals such as polar bears, chipmunks, snowshoe hares, and lion cubs.
Use the CD-ROM
Have students visit the northernmost habitat to learn about animals whose color protects them.
old nature magazines, scissors, mural sized piece of butcher paper, glue
Key Question
How does an animal hide from or warn predators in its habitat?
Curriculum Links
Science; language arts; art
Activities
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Discuss how animals can disappear into their habitats to hide from predators by blending into the background or by looking like something else. Ask students for examples of camouflage, such as stripes on a tiger, insects that mimic leaves and dully colored mother birds sitting on their nests. Introduce the concept of warning coloration; some animals advertise that they don't taste good and that they are dangerous. By using bright colors, they say to other animals "watch out for me" and "don't eat me or you'll get sick." Ask students for examples of warning coloration, like bees, wasps, poison arrow frogs.
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Students can look through old nature magazines and cut out pictures of animals camouflaged in their habitat, as well as, examples of warning coloration.
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Ask students to write about their animal's method of hiding. Have the class construct a mural with the pictures. Then, invite another class to view it and try to find the hidden animals.
Use the CD-ROM to learn more about camouflage and warning colors
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Try the Camouflage Me!
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Visit the Sonoran Desert and discover the Gila Monsters bright warning.
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Swing through the North American Swamp and see what color the Gray Treefrog is today.
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Dive into the coral reef in the South Pacific Island and search for hiding sea creatures.
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Explore the Brazilian Tropical Rainforest, but watch out for poison arrow frogs.
How do closely related animals vary by geographic range?
Curriculum Links
Science, geography, language arts, art
Activities
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Discuss a group of closely related animals, rabbits and their kin, for instance, emphasizing how species differ geographically and by habitat. For example, bunnies living in the forest, like cottontail rabbits are brown with medium size ears. In the cold far north, snowshoe hares turn white in winter, have small ears to reduce frostbite and have big furry snowshoe feet. To survive in the hot desert, jack-rabbits have gigantic ears for cooling off and long feet for big jumps to escape hungry coyotes.
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Divide students into several groups. Ask each group to pick a type of wild animal; cat family, dog family, rodents, etc. Using library books, have them research different members of each family, their geographic range, and their habitats. Students can write a short report on each animal and draw a picture of it. Student groups can share information and post their pictures on a world map.
Use the CD-ROM to learn more about related animals and their ranges
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Try your hand at the Adapt-o-matic experiment.
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Visit all seven habitats, and discover the variety of rodents around the world.
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Hello kitty! What kind are you? Find out by tracking cats of the world habitat by habitat.
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Oh Deer! Ungulates are everywhere! Hoof it to the different habitats and compare species.
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Read the Reports on Mammals, Ungulates and Rodents.
Cassette player, tape of animal calls, references with pictures of soloists
Key Question
How and why do animals make sounds?
Curriculum Links
Science, music, language arts.
Activities
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Discuss how different animals make sounds: whales and birds sing, crickets rub their legs together, woodpeckers drum, frogs and cicadas vibrate air sacs, ruffed grouse stomp their feet. Ask students to discuss wild animal sounds they have heard. What do they think the animals were saying? Discuss how animals communicate to attract mates, talk with their young, and converse with flock/pod members.
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Play a variety of animal sounds, having students guess which animal made each sound.
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Show pictures of the songsters and discuss how and why they make their music. Discuss what music means to people.
Use the CD-ROM to enjoy a variety of animal choruses
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Try the Roaring Good Time experiment and compare cat, dog, bird and frog symphonies.
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Slog through the North American Swamp and listen to each frog sound. Is that a lion or a leopard? Safari into the African Savanna and find out.
Wake up in the Brazilian Tropical Rainforest with a howler monkey chorus.
Play Scat Sound Track, and guess the animal sounds.
fins, mask, snorkel, oar, wet suit, air tank, rain coat, inflatable raft, pictures of aquatic and marine animals.
Key Question
What are some ways animals cope with living in water?
Curriculum Links
Science, language arts, physical education, art
Activities
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Ask students how they swim, discussing different strokes (crawl, backstroke, breast stroke, butterfly). What do their arms and legs accomplish by this? How do they breathe when swimming? How do humans use tools to improve their swimming skills? Discuss equipment used and what it does to help swimmers. Then list animals that live in water.
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Have students match human inventions with their animal inspirations. For example: fins: beaver, whales, frogs, fish; snorkel: insects (larval mosquitoes tail); mask: whirligig beetle eyes, fish eyes; air tank: air bubble taken down by diving beetle, oxygen stored in whales blood; wet suit: blubber on whales, waterproof fur on sea otter; rain coat: waterproof feathers of duck, oiled fur of beaver; oar: flippers on whales, long legs of waterboatman bugs; raft: jelly in jellyfish, floating mosquito eggs.
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Ask students to match pictures of animals with the piece of equipment that animal inspired. Have students draw pictures of aquatic animals next to pictures of themselves swimming. Draw arrows between matching functional parts.
Use the CD-ROM To Explore Aquatic Adaptations
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Dive into the Arctic Ocean, and discover birds that fly underwater!
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Splash into the warm South Pacific, and learn about turtles that swim in the ocean.
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Wade through the North American Swamp, and discover a variety of swimming champions.
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Check out the Report on Fish by going to the Classroom.
