School Programs

• Purpose: This program is designed to help young students distinguish between real-life animal characteristics and behaviors and those that are make believe.
• Program length: 30 minutes
• Class size limit: 30
• Next Generation Sunshine State Standards:
  • SC.K.L.14.2: Recognize that some books and other media portray animals and plants with characteristics they do not have in real life.
  • VA.K.C.1.1: Create and share personal works of art with others.

• Purpose: The students will learn about their five senses and which parts of the body are associated with each sense as they take on the roles of "veterinarians in training" to try and solve five medical mysteries. 
• Program length: 30 minutes
• Class size limit: 30
• Next Generation Sunshine State Standards:
  • SC.K.L.14.1: Recognize the five senses and related body parts.
  • VA.K.C.1.1: Create and share personal works of art with others.

Want to add an art activity to this program?

• Purpose: With the help of some really old friends, students will be able to make comparisons of animals and see why scientists group animals based on shared traits.
• Program length: 30 minutes
• Class size limit: 30
• Next Generation Sunshine State Standards:
  • SC.K.L.14.3: Observe plants and animals, describe how they are alike and how they are different in the way they look and in the things they do.
  • VA.K.C.2.1: Describe personal choices made in the creation of artwork.

Want to add an art activity to this program?

• Teachers: Print a copy of the scavenger hunt for each chaperone.
• Program length: 30 minutes- 1 hour (as your group is visiting Safari World).
• Class size limit: No limit, but group students with at least one chaperone per 10 students.

• Purpose: To expand students’ knowledge of animal features and behaviors that can help or hinder their survival in a particular habitat.
• Program length: 30-45 minutes
• Recommended grade level: 4-5
• Class size limit: 100
• Next Generation Sunshine State Standards:
  • SC.5.L.17.1: Compare and contrast adaptations displayed by animals and plants that enable them to survive in different environments such as life cycles variations, animal behaviors, and physical characteristics.
  • SC.5.L.15.1: Describe how, when the environment changes, differences between individuals allow some plants and animals to survive and reproduce which others die or move to new locations.
  • VA.4.C.1.1: Integrate ideas during the art-making process to convey meaning in personal works of art.
  • VA.(4,5).C.1.2: Describe observations and apply prior knowledge to interpret visual information and reflect on works of art.
  • VA.5.C.2.2: Analyze personal artworks to articulate the motivations and intentions in creating personal works of art.

• Purpose: To identify each of the five major groups of vertebrates, as well as to identify similarities and differences among the groups.
• Program length: 30-45 minutes
• Recommended grade level: 1-3
• Class size limit: 100
• Next Generation Sunshine State Standards:
  • SC.1.L.14.1: Make observations of living things and their environment using the five senses.
  • SC.3.L.15.1: Classify animals (mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, arthropods, vertebrates and invertebrates, live births and lay eggs) according to physical characteristics and behavior.
  • VA.1.F.1.1: Use various art media and real or imaginary choices to create artwork.
  • VA.2.H.3.1: Describe connections made between creating with art ideas and creating with information from other content areas.
  • VA.3.F.1.1: Manipulate art media and incorporate a variety of subject matter to create imaginative artwork.

• Purpose: To compare and contrast the basic needs of plants and animals and show how Lion Country Safari provides mental and physical stimulation for our animals in the form of enrichment.
• Program length: 30-45 minutes
• Recommended grade level: 1-2
• Class size limit: 50
• Next Generation Sunshine State Standards:
  • SC.1.L.14.1: Make observations of living things and their environment using the five senses.
  • SC.1.L.17.1: Through observation, recognize that all plants and animals, including humans, need the basic necessities of air, water, food, and space.
  • SC.2.L.17.1: Compare and contrast the basic needs that all living things, including humans, have for survival.
  • VA.1.S.1.1: Experiment with art processes and media to express ideas.
  • VA.2.C.2.1: Use appropriate decision-making skills to meet intended artistic objectives.

• Purpose: To better understand the transfer of energy through the food chain as well as the interdependence and impact that plants and animals (including humans) have on each other and their environment.
• Program length: 30-45 minutes
• Recommended grade level: 1-4
• Class size limit: 100
• Next Generation Sunshine State Standards:
  • SC.4.L.17.2: Explain that animals, including humans, cannot make their own food and that when animals eat plants or other animals, the energy stored in the food source is passed to them.
  • SC.4.L.17.3: Trace the flow of energy from the Sun as it is transferred along the food chain through the producers to the consumers.
  • SC.4.L.17.4: Recognize ways plants and animals, including humans, can impact the environment.
  • VA.1.F1.1: Use various art media and real or imaginary choices to create artwork.
  • VA.2.C.2.1: Use appropriate decision-making skills to meet intended artistic objectives.
  • VA.3.F.1.1: Manipulate art media and incorporate a variety of subject matter to create imaginative artwork.
  • VA.4.C.2.3: Develop and support ideas from various resources to create unique artworks.

• Purpose: To recognize that living things exist in different habitats around the world, and that all living things need food, water, shelter, and space in order to survive.
• Program length: 30-45 minutes
• Recommended grade level: 1-3
• Class size limit: 100
• Next Generation Sunshine State Standards:
  • SC.1.L.17.1 Through observation, recognize that all plants and animals, including humans, need the basic necessities of air, water, food, and space.
  • SC.2.L.17.1 Compare and contrast the basic needs that all living things, including humans, have for survival.
  • SC.2.L.17.2 Recognize and explain that living things are found all over Earth, but each is only able to live in habitats that meet its basic needs.
  • VA.1.H.3.1: Identify connections between visual art and other content areas.
  • VA.2.H.3.1: Describe connections made between creating with art ideas and creating with information from other content areas.

• Purpose: Students will use observation and inference to become zoo detectives to solve an animal “who done-it.” In this program, students review the food chain and respective terminology and use clues to solve an animal mystery.
• Program length: 30-45 minutes
• Recommended grade level: 3-5
• Class size limit: 100
• Next Generation Sunshine State Standards:
  • SC.3.N.1.1: Raise questions about the natural world, investigate, generate explanations based on explorations.
  • SC.3.N.1.6: Infer based on observation.
  • SC.4.L.17.3: Trace the flow of energy from the Sun as it is transferred along the food chain through the producers to the consumers.
  • SC.5.N.1.6: Recognize and explain the difference between personal opinion/interpretation and verified observation. (assessed as SC.5.N.2.1)
  • VA.3.F.1.1: Manipulate art media and incorporate a variety of subject matter to create imaginative artwork.
  • VA.4.C.2.3: Develop and support ideas from various resources to create unique artworks.
  • VA.4.H.3.1: Discuss how analytical skills and thinking strategies are applied to both art production and problem-solving in other content areas.
  • VA.5.F.1.1: Examine and experiment with traditional or non-traditional uses of media to apply imaginative techniques in two- and/or three-dimensional artworks.

• Purpose: To expand students’ knowledge of plant functions as well as to compare the adaptations of plants to animals that help them to survive in their habitat.
• Program length: 30-45 minutes
• Recommended grade level: 3
• Class size limit: 100
• Next Generation Sunshine State Standards:
  • SC.3.L.14.1 Describe structures in plants and their roles in food production, support, water and nutrient transport, and reproduction.
  • SC.3.L.17.2 Recognize that plants use energy from the Sun, air, and water to make their own food.
  • SC.3.L.14.2: Investigate and describe how plants respond to stimuli (heat, light, gravity), such as the way plant stems grow toward the light and their roots grow downward in response to gravity.

• Purpose: To learn how rocks are formed, how to identify rocks, and how rocks are categorized.
• Program length: 30-45 minutes
• Recommended grade level: 2-4
• Class size limit: 100

• Next Generation Sunshine State Standards:
  • SC.3.P.8.3: Compare materials/objects according to properties, such as size, shape, color, texture, and hardness.
  • SC.4.E.6.1: Identify the 3 categories of rocks: igneous (formed from molten rock); sedimentary (pieces of other rocks and fossilized organisms); and metamorphic (formed from heat & pressure).
  • SC.4.E.6.2: Identify the physical properties of common earth-forming minerals, including hardness, color, luster, cleavage, and streak color, and recognize the role of minerals in the formation of rocks.
  • VA.(1,2,3,4,5).C.3.2: Compare artworks with utilitarian objects and use accurate art vocabulary to describe how they are the same and how they are different.

• Purpose: To learn about the Linnaean System of Classification and how organisms are grouped together based on shared traits.
• Program length: 30-45 minutes
• Recommended grade level: 6
• Class size limit: 100
• Next Generation Sunshine State Standards:
  • SC.6.L.15.1: Analyze and describe why organisms are classified according to shared characteristics with emphasis on the Linnaean system combined with the concept of Domains.

• Purpose: To show students how organisms in an ecosystem interact and how those interactions affect each organism.
• Program length: 30-45 minutes
• Recommended grade level: 7
• Class size limit: 100
• Next Generation Sunshine State Standards:
  • SC.7.L.17.1: Explain and illustrate the roles of and relationships among producers, consumers, and decomposers in the process of energy transfer in a food web (assessed as SC.7.L.17.2 on the Statewide Science Assessment).
  • SC.7.L.17.2: Compare and contrast the relationships among organisms such as mutualism, predation, parasitism, competition, and commensalism (parent benchmark on the Statewide Science Assessment).
  • SC.7.L.17.3: Describe and investigate various limiting factors in the local ecosystem and their impact on native population, including food, shelter, water, space, disease, parasitism, predation, and nesting sites (assessed as SC.7.L.17.2 on the Statewide Science Assessment).

• Purpose: Students will be able to identify and describe various careers within the zoo community. Students will be able to explain the avenues necessary to undertake a career in the zoo community. Students will understand the importance of research within the zoo community.
• Program length: 30-45 minutes
• Recommended grade level: 9-12
• Class size limit: 100
• Next Generation Sunshine State Standards:
  • SC.912.L.17.16: Discuss the large-scale environmental impacts resulting from human activity, including waste spills, oil spills, runoff, greenhouse gases, ozone depletion, and surface and groundwater pollution.
  • SS.912.FL.1.1: Discuss that people choose jobs or careers for which they are qualified based on non-income factors, such as job satisfaction, independence, risk, family, or location.
  • SS.912.FL.1.2: Explain that people vary in their willingness to obtain more education or training because these decisions involve incurring immediate costs to obtain possible future benefits. Describe how discounting the future benefits of education and training may lead some people to pass up potentially high rates of return that more education and training may offer.
  • SS.912.FL.1.3: Evaluate ways people can make more informed education, job, or career decisions by evaluating the benefits and costs of different choices.
  • VA.912.C.1.7: Analyze challenges and identify solutions for three-dimensional structural problems.
  • VA.912.C.2.1: Examine and revise artwork throughout the art-making process to refine work and achieve artistic objective.
  • VA.912.F.3.10: Apply rules of convention to create purposeful design.

• Purpose: To illustrate the importance of earth’s natural resources.
• Program length: 30-45 minutes
• Recommended grade level: 9-12
• Next Generation Sunshine State Standards:
  • SC.912.L.17.16: Discuss the large-scale environmental impacts resulting from human activity, including waste spills, oil spills, runoff, greenhouse gases, ozone depletion, and surface and groundwater pollution.
  •  SC.912.L.17.8: Recognize the consequences of the losses of biodiversity due to catastrophic events, climate changes, human activity, and the introduction of invasive, non-native species.
  • SC.912.L.17.12: Discuss the political, social, and environmental consequences of sustaniable use of land.
  • VA.912.C.2.2: Synthesize knowledge skills learned from non-art content areas to support the processes of creation, interpretation, and analysis. 
• Class size limit: 100

• Purpose: Recognize that catastrophic events; climate changes; human activity; and the introduction of invasive, non-native species may result in loss of biodiversity.
• Program length: 30-45 minutes
• Recommended grade level: 9-12
• Class size limit: 100
• Next Generation Sunshine State Standards:
  • SC.912.L.17.1: Discuss the characteristics of populations, such as number of individuals, age structure, density, and pattern of distribution.
  • SC.912.L.17.16: Discuss the large-scale environmental impacts resulting from human activity, including waste spills, oil spills, runoff, greenhouse gases, ozone depletion, and surface and groundwater pollution.
  • SC.912.L.4: Describe changes in ecosystems resulting from seasonal variations, climate change, and succession.
  • SC.912.L.5: Analyze how population size is determined by births, deaths, immigration, emigration, and limiting factors (biotic and abiotic) that determine carrying capacity.
  • SC.912.L.6: Compare and contrast the relationships among organisms, including predation, parasitism, competition, commensalism, and mutualism.
  • SC.912.L.17.8: Recognize the consequences of the losses of biodiversity due to catastrophic events, climate changes, human activity, and the introduction of invasive, non-native species.
  • VA.912.C.2.2: Synthesize knowledge and skills learned from non-art content areas to support the processes of creation, interpretation, and analysis.

• Purpose: To identify each of the five major groups of vertebrates, as well as to identify similarities and differences among the groups.
• Program length: 30 minutes
• Recommended grade level: 1-3
• Class size limit: 50
• Next Generation Sunshine State Standards:
  • SC.1.L.14.1- Make observations of living things and their environment using the five senses.
  • SC.3.L.15.1- Classify animals (mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, arthropods, vertebrates and invertebrates, live births and lay eggs) according to physical characteristics and behavior.
  • SC.1.N.1.2- Using the five senses as tools, make careful observations, describe objects in terms of number, shape, texture, size, weight, color, and motion, and compare their observation
  • SC.2.N.1.2- Compare the observations made by different groups using the same tools.
  • SC.3.N.1.6- Infer based on observation.

• Purpose: To help students identify major body systems, learn about their different functions, what organs make up each system, and how those of humans compare to those of animals.
• Program length: 30 minutes
• Recommended grade level: 2
• Class size limit: 50
• Next Generation Sunshine State Standards:
  • SC.2.L.14.1: Distinguish human body parts (brain, heart, lungs, stomach, muscles, and skeleton) and their basic functions.
  • SC.2.N.1.1: Raise questions about the natural world, investigate them in teams through free exploration and systematic observations, and generate appropriate explanations based on those explorations.
  • HE.2.C.1.5: Recognize the locations and functions of major human organs.

• Purpose: To show how animals adapt certain physical or behavioral conditions in order to survive for a specific resources.
• Program length: 30 minutes
• Recommended grade level: 4-5
• Class size limit: 50
• Next Generation Sunshine State Standards:
  • SC.4.N.1.7: Recognize and explain that scientists base their explanations on evidence.
  • SC.5.L.17.1- Compare and contrast adaptations displayed by animals and plants that enable them to survive in different environments such as life cycles variations, animal behaviors, and physical characteristics.

• Purpose: To identify different types of rocks and minerals by using only their physical properties.
• Program length: 30 minutes
• Recommended grade level: 4
• Class size limit: 50
• Next Generation Sunshine State Standards:
  • SC.4.E.6.1: Identify the three categories of rocks: igneous, (formed from molten rock); sedimentary (pieces of other rocks and fossilized organisms); and metamorphic (formed from heat and pressure).
  • SC.4.E.6.2: Identify the physical properties of common earth-forming minerals, including hardness, color, luster, cleavage, and streak color, and recognize the role of minerals in the formation of rocks.
  • SC.4.N.1.4- Attempt reasonable answers to scientific questions and cite evidence in support.

• Purpose: To give students the opportunity to learn about Mendelian Genetics in a fun hands on experience.
• Program length: 30 minutes
• Recommended grade level: 7
• Class size limit: 50
• Next Generation Sunshine State Standards:
  • SC.7.L.16.1: Understand and explain that every organism requires a set of instructions that specifies its traits, that this heredity information (DNA) contains genes located on chromosomes of each cell, and that heredity is the passage of these instructions from one generation to another.
  • SC.7.L.16.2: Determine the probabilities for genotype and phenotype combinations using Punnett Squares and pedigrees.

• Purpose: To show students how scientists use their five senses to make powerful observations of the world around them, including grouping animals together based on shared characteristics.
• Program length: 30 minutes
• Recommended grade level: K-1
• Class size limit: 50
• Next Generation Sunshine State Standards:
  • SC.K.N.1.4: Observe and create a visual representation of an object which includes its major features.
  • SC.K.L.14.1: Recognize the five senses and related body parts.
  • SC.1.L.14.1: Make observations of living things and their environment using the five senses.