Poo and Paw Prints

Real-life bear hunts lead to disappointment, but lay your own trails and exciting investigations will follow, says Ronnie Reed...

It had rained overnight and the Y3 children squelched their way along the track leading to the woodland. They squealed, chattered and shouted as they went, frightening off any wildlife within a mile radius – there would be few David Attenborough moments that day.

Further up the path, the child leading the group came to an abrupt halt, pointing at the ground and urging the others to catch up. There in the mud was a paw print: a large, very distinctive impression surrounded by a dusting of white powder.

An innocent looking teacher joined the group, peered down at the mud and casually asked what they had found. A paw print, the children told her. Yes, she continued, but to what or whom did it belong?

More questions followed as the children began their detective work. How many toes might the creature have? Was it a big animal? Did it have claws? Could it be a fox? A bear? Are there bears in the wood? (The teacher was adamant the last bear had disappeared from Britain during Roman times.) Was it even a wild animal?

Standing back, the teacher wondered aloud whether there might be other tracks nearby. If so, perhaps they would provide more clues. Immediately, everyone in the group began to hunt along the path, scouring the mud and leaf litter for signs of animal disturbance. There was no more talk of telly or computer games.

It did not take long to pick up more tracks, this time showing both left and right feet. Following the trail, the children moved off the main path and into the trees, until they stopped at a large, tunnel-shaped whole. There in the entrance sat a furry, black and white toy badger. The teacher again looked surprised and so began a discussion about badgers, food chains and dependency.

Making tracks

One of the problems when taking children out of the classroom to investigate local habitats is that they’re unlikely to see many large, ‘exciting’ animals. At the same time expectations are high because young learners’ knowledge of the natural world comes from spectacular wildlife programmes on the television, filmed after months of careful preparation.

However, while the animals themselves may be scarce, the signs they leave behind are there for all to see, and we can use these as a hook to catch the children’s interest – which is where poo and paw prints come in.

For some reason, paw prints intrigue young children, perhaps because of our hunting past. And it’s relatively simple to lay a trail for the class to follow by putting a laminated print template on the ground and sprinkling it with flour.

To open up a discussion about the defining characteristics of paw prints, you could put out different tracks leading to different animals. Or you might investigate why some animals have do not have matching front and back paws. There are no right answers to some questions, just good thought processes and arguments.

From this, children can go on to create their own paw prints, taking it in turns to track and trail. The joy of this exercise is that you do not need woodland; it can be done around the school grounds. Nor do you need real prints, which can be remarkably elusive when you need them.

And if children are intrigued by prints, then they will be fascinated by poo! The Field Studies Council has come up with a great guide you can use to compare different animal droppings. This makes it possible to tell the difference between carnivore and herbivore faeces, and children can also tell what does and does not get digested by looking at photographs. Hidden in here is a lesson about food chains and even inter-dependency. But the real fun is to be found in letting children model their own poo using clay and mixing in things like sheep’s wool, grass seeds and sequins (that look like fish scales) to add that little bit of authenticity.

Increasingly the children we teach spend less and less time out of doors – we have created a generation that is becoming disconnected from the natural world. It is really important that, as teachers, we do something about this situation both for the sake of our children and the wider environment. We need to take children outside, engage them with wild things and make the natural world meaningful. What better way to do it than through poo and pawprints?

About the author

Ronnie Reed is people and wildlife officer at Seven Sisters Country Park, Sussex Wildlife Trust