Teach and Learn


Educational Games
These animal-themed games make it fun to learn about animals' characteristics and habitats. Students can even create their own new species!

Switcheroo Zoo - Make New Animals
Visitors to this unique zoo make their own new creatures by switching the animals' heads, legs and tails. While students play, they can read facts about each of the animals that comprise their new beast. Visit our lesson plans section for classroom ideas.

entrancemapanimal scene

Your students can learn more about the animals in Switcheroo Zoo by reading their Profiles in the Resources section below.

Learn how to make new animals in Switcheroo Zoo by taking the Guided Tour: Make New Animals. It's a hands-on, step-by-step guide so you will make animals while you learn!

HelpYou can also click the Help button on the fence to open the hidden How to Play panel and find out about everything you can do in the zoo.

"It's fascinating, factual, and fun... A fascinating new piece of software called Switch Zoo Deluxe from the folks at Tubehead has taken an old kid favorite - mixing and matching animal heads, bodies and tails - to a most creative and truly giddy height through the magic of computer morphing... It’s a simple concept, but it’s amazing how it gets kids thinking about diversity, adaptation, and species specialization."

- Diane S. Kendall, Editor of Children's Software Press



Build an Online HabitatBuild an Online Habitat
Students match animals to the environment best suited for their survival. A compatibility meter and a thermometer help evaluate the environment.

Feeding Time at Switcheroo ZooFeeding Time at Switcheroo Zoo
Your students will have fun learning about carnivores, herbivores, omnivores, and scavengers with three games based on animals' diets.

Feeding time for a yellow-billed storkPlease DO Feed the Animals
Your students will learn the meaning of carnivore, herbivore and omnivore, then practice what they've learned by sorting the animals according to their diet type.

Scavengers HuntScavengers Hunt
Can your students spot a scavenger in a crowd? They can have fun finding out by choosing scavengers and non-scavengers from groups of animals. The answers can be surprising.

Meerkat Grab-a SnackMeerkat Grab-a-Snack
Your students can score points by catching insects, worms, scorpions and other meerkat delicacies when they pop out of holes in the ground. Created for Meerkat Manor, a documentary series on Animal Planet.

Where Do I Live?Where Do I Live?
This animal geography game will challenge your students' knowledge as they move the animals to their natural homes. Students can use the Animal Homing Device to see the answer for animals they can't locate.



Lesson Plans
For art, science, creative writing and persuasive writing projects. These lesson plans use Switcheroo Zoo animals to spark interest and creativity.

Field Trip - Make New Animals
Field Trips
Guided Tour: Make New Animals
This guided, hands-on activity is a great way for your students to learn how to make and name new animals in Switcheroo Zoo.

Field Trip: Creative Writing
On this field trip, your students will be taken through the process of making an animal and writing a short story or poem about it.

Field Trip: Explore Animal Music
An exploration of music created from recorded sounds of animals.

Interdisciplinary Lesson PlansInterdisciplinary Lesson Plans
The result of a collaboration between four middle school teachers, these lesson plans are designed to be used either for an interdisciplinary activity, or for separate science, creative writing or persuasive writing projects.

Medieval Art Mixed Breed AnimalsMedieval Art Mixed Breed Animals
Art teacher Linda Woods shares her great lesson plan that references fantastic beasts in myth and legend, and uses Switcheroo Zoo to generate ideas. To see drawings created by fifth grade students using the lesson plan, go to Mixed Breed Animal Drawings.

More Lesson PlansMore Lesson Plans
Visit the Lesson Plans page for simple science and creative writing plans for younger children, and links to Switch Zoo Lesson Plans off-site.


Resources
For on-site research: 142 animal profiles, a US endangered species map, and stories about unusual animal feats and ablities in the Zookeepers' Blog.

Animal ProfilesAnimal Profiles
142 animal species inhabit Switcheroo Zoo and they are all profiled here, so students have easy access to interesting facts about the real animals that make up their fictional combination animals. Use the Google search tool on any page to quickly find animals.

Endangered Species MapEndangered Species Map
This interactive map of the United States provides information about the endangered species of each state. The color key includes descriptions of the biomes.


Visitors' Pages
Switch Zoo visitors contribute funny and creative animal names, mixed animal drawings, stories and poems about the animals, and comments.

Mixed Breed Animal DrawingsMixed Breed Animal Drawings
Enjoy this collection of beautiful "mixed-breed animals" created by students at St. John's Lower School, in Houston, Texas. Art teachers — don't miss the Art Lesson Plans.

Stories and PoemsStories and Poems
Students at Philip Livingston Magnet Academy in Albany, NY wrote these wonderful stories and poems. English teacher, Mary Paley, shares her Interdisciplinary Lesson Plans in the Lesson Plans section.

The Hall of NamesThe Hall of Names
A collection of funny and creative names visitors have given the animals they made at Switcheroo Zoo.

Visitors' CommentsVisitors' Comments
A sampling of email received at Switch Zoo.


Links
Animal Research Resources
Find a wealth of interesting and informative animal information sites to conduct research for stories, reports, and field guides.

Educators' Resources
These sites offer resources for teachers and other educational professionals.