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One of United WAG's three principal missions is to increase animal welfare education in our schools and in our community. There is a direct link between empathy for animals and empathy for one's fellow human beings. By educating ourselves about animals and their needs, we increase our ability to appropriately care for our animal companions and for ourselves, our families and for other members of our community. In order to create a more empathetic and caring adult community, we must begin by providing our children with, among other things, animal welfare education. To that end, United WAG organized a group of community members to develop animal welfare curriculum to be implemented in Miami-Dade County schools as part of the state-mandated Character Education Curriculum. We developed animal welfare lesson plans for Kindergarten through Eighth Grades that address the following nine core values:
citizenship; cooperation; fairness; honesty; integrity; kindness; pursuit of excellence; respect; responsibility
Each lesson plan incorporates Language Arts, Mathematics, Social Studies and/or Science components to address FCAT requirements. United WAG also plans to use the animal welfare lesson plans for bookstore-sponsored reading events and through the Parent Academy. We will also work on developing animal welfare curriculum for senior high school students. The curriculum has been given to the Miami-Dade County Public Schools for implementation. You can download the lesson plans for free by using the following links:
Elementary School Lesson Plans
Middle School Lesson Plans
In addition, the following is a Teacher's Resource list of websites that provide humane education information that can be used in conjunction witn the lesson plans.
www.ddaf.org Doris Day Animal Foundation
http://teachingandanimals.vview.org/ Association of Professional Humane Educators
http://www.iihed.org/ International Institute for Humane Education
www.nahee.org National Association for Humane and Environmental Education
http://www.nahee.org/awards/2006_book_award.asp Lists the 2006 KIND Children's Book Award recipient along with thirteen other KIND Children's Honor books with descriptions of each book.
http://www.bestfriends.org/nomorehomelesspets/resourcelibrary/humaneedindex.cfm Best Friends Animal Society
http://www.latham.org/ Latham Foundation for the Promotion of Humane Education
http://www.humaneteen.org/ Humane Teen
www.americanhumane.org American Humane
www.hsus.org Humane Society USA
http://www.all-creatures.org/ Mary T. and Frank L. Hoffman Family Foundation
http://www.nhes.org/ National Humane Education Society
www.aspca.org American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
www.humanesocietymiami.org Humane Society of Miami
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