Ivory Trade WebQuest - Fun Activities for Class & Home

Ivory Trade WebQuest: Higher Order Thinking Skill Activity

Middle Secondary

Australian Curriculum General Capability: Literacy

Australian Curriculum General Capability: Critical and creative thinking

Australian Curriculum General Capability: Personal and social capability

Australian Curriculum General Capability: Intercultural Understanding

Australian Curriculum General Capability: Ethical Understanding

Australian Curriculum General Capability: ICT Capability

Australian Curriculum Cross Curriculum Priorities: Asian Priority

Australian Curriculum Cross Curriculum Priorities: Sustainability Priority

At University, you are expected to think! Sometimes out of the box!

To do this thinking, you need to look at other people’s point of view. There is a lot of consensus involved. There is a lot of listening involved. There is a lot of research involved. Your point of view – once educated – is important.

The topic you are going to continue to investigate is the Ivory Trade.

Introduction

10th May 2016: BTN

Read the following transcript as you watch the video.

Here, in the middle of Nairobi National Park, more than 100 million dollars is going up in flames. These are piles and piles of illegal ivory. More than 100 tonnes of elephant tusks, representing the death of thousands and thousands of elephants. Authorities started these fires to send a message to poachers in Africa and illegal traders around the world.

ROBIN HOLLISTER, FIRE MASTER: How do you send a message, you do something spectacular.

HELEN CLARK, UNITED NATIONS: That elephant alive is worth so much more than it ever was dead.

Did You Know?

Helen Clark - March For Elephants and Rhinos
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Africa is home to around 500 thousand elephants but the United Nations says 25 to 30 thousand are killed every year, many as a result of poaching. Poaching is when a person illegally kills an animal to sell part of it. In the case of elephants, poachers kill them to steal their ivory tusks. Ivory is used to make things like ornaments, jewellery and sculptures and in many countries, particularly in Asia, people will pay thousands of dollars for them because it's a sign of wealth and some believe ivory might have medicinal properties if eaten!

This is a piece of ivory that Australian customs officials confiscated from someone coming into the country and so is this one. This is an elephant's tusk and it was donated. It's been carved and is probably worth thousands and thousands of dollars.

In 1989 a worldwide ban on ivory was introduced which made it illegal to buy new ivory products. Experts say after that, the demand for ivory went down and elephant numbers started to recover. But over the past 10 years, poaching has increased, partly because of demand in countries like China and Vietnam.

ALI BONGO ONDIMBA, PRESIDENT OF GABON: Even in Gabon, the value of a forest elephant ivory has sparked an alarming increase in poaching. Poaching has turned elephants into refugees.
Authorities have tried heaps of different things to fight poaching, like using drones to spot illegal hunting parties, giving rangers special training and creating special private reserves for the elephants to live on. But recently African leaders got together to talk about new ways to stop poachers in their countries, like burning ivory. Kenya's president wants other leaders to destroy their stockpiles like he did, to show that they don't tolerate poaching.

UHURU KENYATTA, KENYAN PRESIDENT: And to do what we can to ensure that never again will our elephants be attacked in this way.

But not everyone agrees. Some think that the burn will actually make ivory more expensive because there'll be less of it available on the market and that could encourage more people to become poachers. Some have even suggested creating ivory farms and making ivory trading legal again to get rid of the need for poaching.

While many people are divided on how to tackle the illegal ivory trade, most agree that more needs to be done to stop these great creatures from disappearing forever.

Task

You are to investigate the Ivory Trade and answer the big question

“Should there be a legal trade in elephant ivory?”

You are to look at this question from different perspectives and come to an agreement – consensus in answering this question. You are to report to the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) on the outcomes of your investigation.

Process

1. You are to look at this issue from different perspectives.

2. Each team (of 7) will consist of the following perspectives: (click on image for resource)

Poachers	People who believe in stopping trade in ivory
Conservationists who want to protect the elephants	People who believe in farming ivory
People who believe in making ivory trading legal again	People who want to buy ivory Park Rangers

3. Regardless of what you believe, you are to take on the perspective you have been allocated. You are to “walk in that person’s shoes”!

4. You are to address the big question from your perspective – you are to “fight” for this perspective.

5. The class will have a number of teams. All the “Poachers” will get together as will the other perspectives to research their perspective. As you research, list arguments and counter arguments that are stated in each article. Indicate whether they are facts or opinions. Copy the table below to show your evidence.

Article Name and URL	Arguments	Fact or Opinion
	Counter Arguments

Use the Resources listed [below] to help with your perspective.

6. You will come up with an answer to the big question as each perspective. Be ready to cite examples from your research to back up your argument.

7. You will go back to your team (of 7) and set up a Reference Group to report back to the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

While you need to “fight” for your perspective, you also need to listen to different points of view. Come to consensus.

8. Write a recommendation – a dot point with no more than 300 words – that you all agree on supporting the answer to the big question.

9. Listen to the other teams’ reports. Use Mentimeter to vote with your smartphones on each report.

10. As a class, re-write your recommendation to CITES.

Resources

1. Ivory Trade

2. Born Free: Keep Wildlife in the Wild: The Ivory Trade

3. WWF Global: Threats to African Elephants

4. Video: A Brief History of the Elephant Ivory Trade

5. Ivory Poachers and their enablers

6. Comment: the proponents of the ivory trade are eerily quiet today

7. Can Elephants Survive a Legal Ivory Trade? Debate is Shifting against it

8. Elephant Poaching: Causes/Effects

9. Kenyan ivory burnt by President Uhuru Kenyatta

10. Elephant Poachers “Will not have the last word in Kenya” – National Geographic

11. Epic Journey brings first elephant to Somalia in 20 years

12. One of America’s Largest Ivory Markets may finally ban sales

13. The global ivory trade to remain illegal after meeting of UN Endangered Species Committee

14. LRA warlord Joseph Kony uses ivory trade to buy arms

15. How to trap elephant poachers with their own technology

16. Ivory’s Human Toll

17. Elephant Poaching: One Mum’s Inspiring Story to Save the Elephants

18. The Case for a Legal Ivory Trade: It could help stop the slaughter

19. Chinese Ivory Trade

20. African countries deeply divided over ivory trade before UN meeting

21. Why banning the mammoth ivory trade would be a huge mistake

Evaluation

Activity	Working Towards	Achieved	Exemplary
1. Perspective Individual Role Group Work Class Work	Fulfilled their individual role within the group. Contributed to the group and class discussion, found and responded to the perspective with some understanding of this role. Research completed with limited idea of arguments or counter arguments, not sure of either facts or opinions. Contributed to the class consensus.	Went to some effort to fulfil their individual role. Contributed to the discussion, found and responded to the perspective, thought of the purpose or reason for the perspective, and described their reactions, and thoughts to these understanding. Research completed, arguments and counter arguments analysed with distinct notion of either fact or opinion. Contributed to the class consensus process.	Went to extraordinary lengths to fulfil their individual role. Contributed to the discussion, found and responded to their perspective, thought of the purpose, reasons and predicaments of their perspective. Research completed, arguments and counter arguments analysed methodically; distinct notion of which is fact or opinion and categorised into perspectives. Contributed to the class consensus process. Drew conclusions about each perspective and gave thoughtful and provocative ideas to stimulate ideas.
2. CITES Recommendation Individual Role Group Work Class Work	Fulfilled their individual role within the group. Contributed to the brainstorming session. Able to distinguish the reasoning of each perspective. Contributed to the group's understanding of the recommendation. Contributed to the class' consensus building exercise.	Went to some effort to fulfil their individual role. Contributed to the brainstorming session, and analysed the reasons of each perspective. Was able to distinguish and speak out about the difference between each reason. Contributed to the group's exercise of writing the recommendation. Contributed to the class' consensus building process.	Went to extraordinary lengths to fulfil their individual role. Contributed to the brainstorming session, synthesised and analysed the information about the issue. Raised questions about the perceived differences in interpretation of each perspective and the recommendations put forward. Was able to distinguish and speak out about the difference put forward by each perspective and help the group know the difference. Contributed to the class' consensus building process by debating the recommendations involved in a positive way.
3. Strategy Individual Role Group Work Class Work	Fulfilled their individual role within the group. Contributed to the making of the strategy and helped with deciding and contributed to the creative presentation.	Went to some effort to fulfil their individual role. Contributed to the making of the strategy. Listed and interpreted information about the strategy. Listed the important messages and analysed the information from the various sources given. Helped with the group's creativity to show their strategy and added to any ideas in a positive and creative way. Created an app with limited functionality. Thought of some questions about their strategy and helped construct the strategy in a positive and creative way.	"Went to extraordinary lengths to fulfil their individual role. Deduced the characteristics of the strategy. Analysed and categorised the messages and qualities of their strategy. Helped in an extraordinary way with the group's creativity to show their strategy. Thought of interesting and challenging questions for the strategy. Helped in deciding on the group's strategy and added new twists or innovation to its completion. Created an outstanding app. Contributed to the group's activities in a positive and creative way.

Conclusion

The GIANTS Club is a forum of leaders for combating the elephant poaching crisis in Africa. This forum: “secures multi-million-dollar funding to strengthen frontline elephant protection, boost illegal wildlife trade prosecutions, and spark innovations in conservation finance”. However, philanthropists and financiers can only do so much.

You are to set up as a team and then as a class a new strategy for reaching the students of the world to help save the elephants. You might also consider: what can be done to persuade people not to buy ivory.

You are to use social media and to develop an app around this strategy.

See the following resources to create this strategy:

Code.org