November’s Short Read, “Please Don’t Pet the Shark,” explores how taking selfies with wild animals can be harmful—both to you and to the animal. After reading the article with your students, explore the resources below to keep their learning going.
Essential Questions
Post these questions in your classroom for students to refer to as they explore the resources:
- What rights should wild animals have?
- How can we use social media responsibly?
- How is everything in nature connected?
3 resources to keep the learning going:
Get acquainted with the Wildlife Selfie Code.
Students can use these guidelines (mentioned in “Please Don’t Pet the Shark”) to understand when a selfie is harmful and when it is safe.
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This is a safe distance from which to take a wildlife selfie.
Discover a special report about the impact of wildlife selfies.
Students can check out this report by World Animal Protection, an animal welfare organization, which focuses on the harmful impact of wildlife selfies on animals in the Amazon. The report contains two case studies, infographics about wildlife selfies on social media, and examples of “good” and “bad” wildlife selfies.
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This would be an example of a "bad" wildlife selfie.
Read an article about Instagram’s new wildlife selfie alert system.
This National Geographic article is about how Instagram is fighting against wildlife selfies with a new alert system. Now when you search for a wildlife selfie on Instagram, it will trigger a pop-up message explaining the dangerous conditions that made that seemingly innocent wildlife photo possible.
Shutterstock
Tourists often don’t realize that taking photos like this can be dangerous as well as harmful to the animal.
Text-to-Speech