Giant pandas come to Portree’s school children

09/05/2016 in RZSS

Conservation charity the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS), which owns and manages RZSS Edinburgh Zoo, will bring giant panda outreach to Portree Primary School, on the Isle of Skye, on Wednesday 11 May, with the RZSS China Mobile Library.

This exciting outreach education programme travels to schools throughout Scotland, providing ‘panda boxes’ to schools on a three-day loan as part of the ‘Beyond the Panda’ educational outreach programme. From Wednesday to Friday, the RZSS education team will deliver various education, outreach sessions alongside the China Mobile Library to the children of Portree Primary School.

The boxes are filled with games, jigsaws and other fun activities which stimulate learning and classroom discussions. The contents enable students to investigate, study and explore a variety of topics within the overall context of giant pandas and China.

 The education programme will be brought to Skye with the help of a brand new ‘Beyond the Panda’ vehicle, which was kindly donated by Arnold Clark. And as appropriate for a vehicle delivering giant panda outreach, the car features large, colourful images of Yang Guang, the male giant panda at RZSS Edinburgh Zoo. The visit to Portree Primary will be the first major trip undertaken by the new ‘Beyond the Panda’ vehicle.

Sandie Robb, RZSS Senior Education Officer, said: “The RZSS China Mobile Library is a fantastic and truly unique outreach learning experience. 

“Through the library, students are able to learn about Chinese history, geography, culture and language, as well as about giant pandas and the conservation work of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland. The children really enjoy the educational games, whilst learning at the same time. The RZSS China Mobile Library allows us to inspire the next generation of nature conservationists.

“RZSS is very grateful to Confucius Institute for Scotland, for their funding of our expanded ‘Beyond the Panda’ programme and to Arnold Clark for supplying us with the ‘Beyond the Panda’ vehicle which is helping us to deliver this educational outreach programme to school children across Scotland.”

The RZSS China Mobile Library also provides teacher training to help teachers use the learning boxes with their pupils and this is backed up with a visit by a Senior Education Officer from RZSS, who conducts the outreach sessions with additional resource materials. 

In addition to the RZSS China Mobile Library, RZSS also offers a range of ‘Beyond the Panda’ learning resources which provide a range of interdisciplinary learning activities for children and young people from early years onwards.

At the beginning of May, ‘Beyond the Panda’ was relaunched with an expanded programme to include a Secondary session and a session for youth groups. The new Secondary session has been developed by RZSS, primarily for Scottish children learning Mandarin and teaches students how to translate real life giant panda information signage, press releases and other written material. The new Youth Group session, tilted ‘Land of the Panda’ investigates both the giant and red panda while also discovering more about China, its culture and language.

Classes who wish to progress further in the Beyond the Panda programme are able to work towards a Pambassador Award at bronze, silver and gold levels.