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We want to raise awareness of the problems they cause.

TERRAPIN DANGER!! They eat ducklings, duck eggs, fish, slugs and snails! They also carry salmonella!. Hundreds of terrapins are on the loose in London! Thousands in ponds across the UK!. We would like you to produce a poster that we can use to advertise this issue nationally.

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We want to raise awareness of the problems they cause.

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  1. TERRAPIN DANGER!! They eat ducklings, duck eggs, fish, slugs and snails! They also carry salmonella! Hundreds of terrapins are on the loose in London! Thousands in ponds across the UK! We would like you to produce a poster that we can use to advertise this issue nationally. We want to raise awareness of the problems they cause. People buy terrapins as pets but get bored with them, or they get too big and so owners release them into the wild – which is illegal.

  2. The Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles were the stars of a favourite children’s TV show in the 1980s and 1990s. PETS! Video games Cereal Toys Films

  3. Terrapins are the oldest living creatures of our planet. They are found almost all over the world, except in Antarctica and the Arctic. They like tropical regions where the warm climate helps breeding. They grow to about 10 to 12 inches in length. They live for an average of 15 to 20 years but some may live to 30. The female terrapin normally lays eggs once a year between April and July. The size of the clutch varies from four to 18 oblong-shaped, pinkish-white eggs. When they are born they are about one-inch long and weigh from 6 to 10 g.

  4. Up2d8 maths Teacher’s guide In the news over the last few months there have been reports about the problems terrapins are causing in our countryside. People buy them as pets, notably when the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtle were a craze in the 1980s and 90s, and either get bored of them, or they grow too big and so they release them into the wild. They are known as feral and invasive. Conservationists are concerned: not only is it illegal to ‘dump’ these creatures, but they are causing havoc among wildlife, eating ducks, ducks eggs, fish etc, and they can also carry salmonella. They can be found mainly in ponds with heavy vegetation, muddy streams and small woodland lakes. They spend most of their time in the water or basking in the sun. … continued on the next slide

  5. … continued Their number in the wild is growing, so much so that some found in a south Wales park were captured and flown over to Italy! Before working on these spreads, take a look at some of these websites to familiarise yourself with the situation. Have a look at the video clip in the first link, it provides an overview of the current situation. BBC Science BBC Wales BBC Radio 4

  6. 1st spread: Terrapin Invasion! ● Begin a discussion about terrapins and why they are becoming a nuisance by showing the video clip suggested in the introduction. What do the children think? What do they think people should do if they buy one and then, a few years later, don’t want it any more? What do they think people should consider before buying one? ● Together make a list of the destructive/dangerous things that terrapins do that are mentioned on the video clip and stated on the spread. ● Talk about the creatures that terrapins eat and what salmonella is. ● Ask younger children to count the terrapins they can see on the spread. How many can they see altogether? Use this as an opportunity to practice one more/one less, ten more/less etc. ● Ask them to use counters and count out enough to represent the number shown on the spread. Ask them to group them into hoops or on circular pieces of paper to represent ponds – how many ways can they group them? Encourage them to make marks or write number sentences to show their results. ● Have any of them ever owned a terrapin or do they know someone that does? You could use this as an opportunity to discuss pets in general, listing those the children have, making a tally and representing this information as a pictogram, bar chart or pie chart. …continued on the next slide

  7. 1st spread: Terrapin Invasion! continued… ● Discuss the reasons mentioned as to why terrapins are released: people get bored of them, they grow too big. Explain that they can grow to be a foot long. Discuss the measurement of a foot. Where in the world is this measurement used? Talk about inches, telling the children that there are twelve in a foot. Compare inches to centimetres: 1 inch is approximately 2.54cm. The older children could measure lines of varying lengths in centimetres and then convert to inches. Ask them to work out how many centimetres there are in a foot and to draw a line this length to show the length of an average adult terrapin. ● Discuss how terrapins should be looked after if kept as pets, eg. tank needs cleaning regularly, tank needs changing as the terrapin grows to give it enough room to move about, they are carnivores so need meat/fish type foods, and sometimes live prey and real meat/fish. They are time consuming and expensive! You could ask the children to research this in more detail. ● Encourage them to work in pairs or small groups to make a poster as requested on the spread to share all this information in order to raise awareness of what is happening. You could suggest that they come up with ideas to tell people about the best care of these animals if kept as pets and what to be mindful of.

  8. 2nd spread: Why are there so many terrapins in the UK? ● Ask the children if they have heard of the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. Explain that they were in a really popular cartoon TV show in the 1980s and 1990s. The first broadcast in the UK was in 1987 and the last in 1996. Make a Carroll diagram to show who has/has not heard of this series. ● You could make up a timeline to show these dates and any other significant ones that they know of, eg. their birth year, dates from history topics studied. ● Tell them that there were 196 episodes. Use this as an opportunity to explore place value and devise problems, such as the show lasted for nine years, how many episodes a year? If it had run on for another six years, how many episodes would that be? ● You could use TV guides to rehearse and reinforce time – how many hours a day are there cartoons on Channel 4 etc. Invite them to make up their own TV timetable with their favourite shows and made up times. Ask questions such as how long from the beginning of the first show to the end of the last? ● Ask them what their favourite TV shows are today. Make a list of these on the board and a tally to show who likes which show. You could use this as an opportunity to rehearse lists, frequency tables, pictograms, bar charts and/or pie charts. ● Discuss the types of memorabilia that come from popular films and TV shows, eg. DVDs, computer games, action figures, books, cards, birthday cakes. Explain that Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles was the reason why terrapins became a really popular pet and that as babies these creatures are tiny and easily manageable pets, but that they grow and become more difficult and expensive to keep. ● Look at the examples of items that were sold based around these cartoon characters and ask the children to think of other cartoon characters who have been the catalyst for production of such items. …continued on the next slide

  9. 2nd spread: Why are there so many terrapins in the UK? continued… ● You could develop this idea into a problem solving activity with money using mental calculation strategies for example ask them to make up prices for each item, give them a budget and ask them to work out the different items they could buy within their budget. How many possibilities are there? ● Extend this by providing Argos catalogues or similar and ask the children to work in small groups, cutting out some of the toys that they would choose to buy and to make up a price list. Ask questions from this e.g. how much more for x than y, how much for two/three/four of z?

  10. 3rd spread: Did you know…..? ● Discuss the fact that terrapins are the oldest living creatures on the planet. Ask the children to research when people first think they were around and to find out how these creatures are the same today and how they are different (eg. their bodies were little larger and they had small teeth). ● Look at a globe, if possible an interactive one. Ask the children to identify the Antarctic and Arctic. Why don’t they think terrapins can survive there? You could explore temperatures and compare them with those of the UK, bringing in negative numbers and plotting them on number lines or thermometers, asking for differences in temperatures. You could ask them to represent this data using line graphs. After that you could explore mode, range, median and mean temperatures. ● Discuss and measure the distances from these places and your location in the UK. You could use this to practise converting from miles to kilometres and vice versa. You could ask the children to make a map and plot a journey from the Arctic to the UK and on to the Antarctic working out the distances and scaling them down. ● Locate the tropical areas of the world and, again, compare temperatures and also rainfall making line graphs to show the data. Discuss why terrapins like these climates. ● Focus on the fact that they live for an average of 15 to 20 years. Discuss averages, write a selection of numbers on the board and ask children to find the average of them. You could make up some ages of terrapin deaths and ask them to work out the average age of these! ● Talk about the word clutch, what does it mean? What does it mean in this context? Younger children could identify the months on a calendar when the female terrapin lays her eggs. They could talk about which month comes before or after April and July and identify the other possible months for egg laying. …continued on the next slide

  11. 3rd spread: Did you know…..? continued… ● Give the children digit cards and ask them to show you the number of eggs the female lays. They could make different numbers of eggs out of plasticine, play-doh or similar and hide them in the sand tray for a friend to find. ● A baby terrapin is about the size of a 10p coin, ask the children to measure the diameter of one of these coins. You could use this as an opportunity to explore circles. You could ask them to make one that is the size of an adult, using a pair of compasses if appropriate (by using a six inch radius) to compare the two sizes. ● Younger children could draw round 10p coins, colour them appropriately, cut them out and make a ‘nursery’ for several baby terrapins! How many did they make? How many did a group make? How many did the class make? Use this as an opportunity to practise one to one correspondence or addition of groups of small numbers. You could make a terrapin poster with these, labelling with numbers. ● You could ask the children to find items that weigh between 6 to 10g. They could use plasticine to make a baby terrapin of the correct weight, estimating first of course. ● You could ask the children to research more facts about today’s terrapins and make up a fact file.

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