SYRACUSE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT

SYRACUSE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT
Grade 06 Unit 02 Assessment B
Informational Reading
Standards: RI.6.2, RI.6.3, RI.6.4, RI.6.5
Should You Have A Pet In Your Classroom?
The following article is an excerpt from “Caring for Animals: A Guide to Pets in the Classroom,” published by
The American Association for Laboratory Animal Science (AALAS), 2008.
1
There are many reasons to keep animals in the classroom. This can be good for students
of all ages. The main reason is that it will teach children responsibility. Classroom pets show
children how important it is to take good care of another living thing. Many children and adults
want to have pets, but they do not know how hard it is to take care of a pet. Sadly many pets are
abused. Keeping pets in the classroom helps students learn what a pet needs and how much time
is needed to keep animals safe and healthy.
2
Another reason for keeping animals in the classroom is to teach students empathy.
Empathy means to feel what others feel, even for an animal or another student. Learning
empathy may help with bullying. People bully animals, too. Building empathy will help
children to treat animals with respect, understand their needs and meet those needs; hopefully
this will spread into the human world.
3
A final reason for having animals in the classroom is it would give students a chance to
get to know animals. Many students are not around animals. This is mostly true in big cities.
This can also be true for students from the country unless they live on farms. Some students
have a "squashing the bug" way of thinking about animals because they are not around animals.
Keeping animals in the classroom can help expose students to animals and the world around
them and help the students to be helpful and kind.
Worst
Best
Classroom
Classroom
4
There are many good reasons for having pets in a
Pets
Pets
classroom. I hope you will read about them at the National Pet
Week website.
Snake
Guinea pig
Ferret
Rats/Mice
Birds
Gerbil
Hamster
Goldfish
Rabbit
Betta Fish
This resource package is not intended to advocate the captivity of wild
species, rather to foster a respect for animals through the use of
Source: www.petmd.com
classroom pets.