UPD8

Elephant Feast

Learning objectives

Students will apply their knowledge of balanced diets in a new context.

Try the activity

• elephant feast teachers notes
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• elephant feast activity
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Curriculum link

Unit 8a Food and digestion
• That foods are a source of raw materials for the body
• That foods are the energy resource to maintain the body's activities (growth, repair and movement)
• That foods contain a mix of proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals, fibre and water
• That a healthy diet contains a balance of foodstuffs

This activity could also be used as pre-GCSE extension work.

Running the activity

Possible starter
Display page 1 – a contemporaneous newspaper report – to set the scene. Get students to discuss whether they would eat elephant meat themselves. How would they eat it? What would happen to the leftovers? What would be the nutritional benefits? Take a class vote if you wish.

Then tell students they will be applying to take part in a new TV reality show in which they might well get the chance to try elephant meat!

If you wish, use the information at the start of these teachers' notes, and the websites below, to tell students how scientists found out about the elephant kill of 400,000 years ago.

Main activity:
Display page 2 – another page from the newspaper – and get students to study the information on it. Ask students if they have heard of jerky, pemmican or biltong, which are all meats that have been dried to preserve them, just as elephant meat was 400,000 years ago.

Give individuals or groups copies of page 3, which asks them to apply to take part in a new reality TV show – The Cave. Students will need the information on pages 1 and 2 to produce appropriate answers to the questions. They will need to use their imagination – or the information on the final website listed below – to create dried elephant meat recipes.

Web links

News links

BBC news

News Story about the elephant remains find.

BBC news

Another BBC news story about same find – from a more local slant.

Oxford Archaeology

Oxford archaeology site including a really concise article 'Elephant Hunters of the stone age.'

Southampton University

Website from Southampton University about the man who dug the site up.

Archaeology information

All you need to know about 'Heidelberg man' and more.

Wikipedia

All about 'jerky' and other dried meat

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