Maddie, the Zoo and You

Episode 2

Why Do We Play?

In today’s episode at the zoo, Maddie is having fun playing! She discovers that playing helps us to learn new things. She uses her special camera on a pole to see a tiger use its brain, eyes and paws together to learn by picking things up and moving them around. Maddie shows us how our brain and bodies work together to help us when we’re learning to do new things too, like ride a scooter, and that when we try again and again to learn something new it’s called perseverance. She discovers that a giraffe uses perseverance to stand up, balance and walk on the same day it is born! Next, Maddie cleans up giraffe poo to find out how teamwork can help us to do things quicker. She visits the African hunting dogs and find out how they use teamwork to share food, and she uses her special night vision camera to see how they snuggle together to keep each other warm.

Episode 3

How Do We Move?

Today at the zoo, Maddie is moving around in lots of different ways! She uses her special slow motion camera to see how a cheetah uses its body and something called fast twitch muscles to run really fast. She learns that our bodies also have fast twitch muscles as well as slow twitch muscles, which help us to run slower over a long distance. She heads to the sea lion enclosure to see the sea lions swim, and learns how, when we swim, we use our hands to scoop water and kick our feet to push us along, just like a sea lion’s flippers and tail! Next, Maddie learns that our hands have fingers and an opposable thumb so that we can grip things. She finds out how a squirrel monkey uses its fingers and thumb to grip onto a branch so it can swing from tree to tree. Then she uses her special camera in the wolverine enclosure to learn how a wolverine can make its special claws longer and shorter. Imagine if our nails could do that!

Episode 4

How Do We Communicate?

In today’s episode, Maddie’s at the zoo to learn about the different ways we communicate, like using our voice to talk or using our hand to wave. She visits the chimpanzee enclosure and learns that a chimpanzee uses its body to make friends too by grooming other chimpanzees. Then she discovers how our sense of taste, smell, hearing, sight and touch help us to understand the world. Our ears can hear sound from far away, but Maddie uses a special machine called a geophone to see how elephants can hear each other almost 10 kilometres away! Maddie explains how our bodies can be used to show when we’re happy or excited, and she uses her special camera to see what the animals do when they are excited or happy too.

Episode 5

How Do We Stay Comfortable?

Today, Maddie learns about feeling comfortable. She visits the butterfly house and explains that some animals are warm-blooded and some animals are cold-blooded. She learns that a butterfly is cold-blooded and can only fly when it’s warm outside, but that our bodies are warm-blooded. Maddie heads to the penguin pool and uses her special thermal imaging camera to see how warm-blooded animals like penguins keep their body temperature the same, even when the water and air outside is cold. She learns that our bodies sweat when we are too hot and how hippos like to wallow in mud – and the mud evaporates and takes the heat away with it! Next, Maddie learns that keeping clean by changing our clothes and washing our body and hair helps us to feel comfortable. She discovers that a lemur uses its special teeth, called a toothcomb, to keep its fur clean, and she uses her special camera to see how a lynx makes itself comfortable when it’s ready to go to sleep.