TERRAPIN
DANGER!!
They eat
ducklings,
duck eggs,
fish, slugs
and snails!
They also
carry
salmonella!
Hundreds
of terrapins
are on the
loose in
London!
Thousands
in ponds
across the
UK!
We would like you
to produce a
poster that we can
use to advertise
this issue
nationally.
We want to
raise
awareness of
the problems
they cause.
People buy terrapins
as pets but get bored
with them, or they get
too big and so owners
release them into the
wild – which is illegal.
The Teenage Mutant Hero
Turtles were the stars of a
favourite children’s TV show
in the 1980s and 1990s.
PETS!
Video games
Cereal
Toys
Films
Terrapins are the oldest living creatures of our planet.
They are found almost all over the world,
except in Antarctica and the Arctic.
They like tropical regions where the warm
climate helps breeding.
They grow to about 10 to 12 inches in length.
They live for an average of 15 to 20 years but some may live to 30.
The female terrapin normally
lays eggs once a year
between April and July.
The size of the clutch varies
from four to 18 oblongshaped, pinkish-white eggs.
When they are born they are
about one-inch long and weigh
from 6 to 10 g.
Up2d8 maths
Teacher’s guide
In the news over the last few months there have been
reports about the problems terrapins are causing in our
countryside. People buy them as pets, notably when the
Teenage Mutant Hero Turtle were a craze in the 1980s and
90s, and either get bored of them, or they grow too big and
so they release them into the wild. They are known as feral
and invasive. Conservationists are concerned: not only is it
illegal to ‘dump’ these creatures, but they are causing havoc
among wildlife, eating ducks, ducks eggs, fish etc, and they
can also carry salmonella. They can be found mainly in
ponds with heavy vegetation, muddy streams and small
woodland lakes. They spend most of their time in the water
or basking in the sun.
… continued on the next slide
… continued
Their number in the wild is growing, so much so that some
found in a south Wales park were captured and flown over to
Italy!
Before working on these spreads, take a look at some of
these websites to familiarise yourself with the situation. Have
a look at the video clip in the first link, it provides an overview
of the current situation.
BBC Science
BBC Wales
BBC Radio 4
1st spread: Terrapin Invasion!
● Begin a discussion about terrapins and why they are becoming a nuisance by showing
the video clip suggested in the introduction. What do the children think? What do they
think people should do if they buy one and then, a few years later, don’t want it any
more? What do they think people should consider before buying one?
● Together make a list of the destructive/dangerous things that terrapins do that are
mentioned on the video clip and stated on the spread.
● Talk about the creatures that terrapins eat and what salmonella is.
● Ask younger children to count the terrapins they can see on the spread. How many can
they see altogether? Use this as an opportunity to practice one more/one less, ten
more/less etc.
● Ask them to use counters and count out enough to represent the number shown on the
spread. Ask them to group them into hoops or on circular pieces of paper to represent
ponds – how many ways can they group them? Encourage them to make marks or write
number sentences to show their results.
● Have any of them ever owned a terrapin or do they know someone that does? You could
use this as an opportunity to discuss pets in general, listing those the children have,
making a tally and representing this information as a pictogram, bar chart or pie chart.
…continued on the next slide
1st spread: Terrapin Invasion! continued…
● Discuss the reasons mentioned as to why terrapins are released: people get bored of
them, they grow too big. Explain that they can grow to be a foot long. Discuss the
measurement of a foot. Where in the world is this measurement used? Talk about
inches, telling the children that there are twelve in a foot. Compare inches to
centimetres: 1 inch is approximately 2.54cm. The older children could measure lines of
varying lengths in centimetres and then convert to inches. Ask them to work out how
many centimetres there are in a foot and to draw a line this length to show the length of
an average adult terrapin.
● Discuss how terrapins should be looked after if kept as pets, eg. tank needs cleaning
regularly, tank needs changing as the terrapin grows to give it enough room to move
about, they are carnivores so need meat/fish type foods, and sometimes live prey and
real meat/fish. They are time consuming and expensive! You could ask the children to
research this in more detail.
● Encourage them to work in pairs or small groups to make a poster as requested on the
spread to share all this information in order to raise awareness of what is happening.
You could suggest that they come up with ideas to tell people about the best care of
these animals if kept as pets and what to be mindful of.
2nd spread: Why are there so many terrapins in the UK?
● Ask the children if they have heard of the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. Explain that
they were in a really popular cartoon TV show in the 1980s and 1990s. The first
broadcast in the UK was in 1987 and the last in 1996. Make a Carroll diagram to show
who has/has not heard of this series.
● You could make up a timeline to show these dates and any other significant ones that
they know of, eg. their birth year, dates from history topics studied.
● Tell them that there were 196 episodes. Use this as an opportunity to explore place
value and devise problems, such as the show lasted for nine years, how many episodes
a year? If it had run on for another six years, how many episodes would that be?
● You could use TV guides to rehearse and reinforce time – how many hours a day are
there cartoons on Channel 4 etc. Invite them to make up their own TV timetable with
their favourite shows and made up times. Ask questions such as how long from the
beginning of the first show to the end of the last?
● Ask them what their favourite TV shows are today. Make a list of these on the board and
a tally to show who likes which show. You could use this as an opportunity to rehearse
lists, frequency tables, pictograms, bar charts and/or pie charts.
● Discuss the types of memorabilia that come from popular films and TV shows, eg.
DVDs, computer games, action figures, books, cards, birthday cakes. Explain that
Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles was the reason why terrapins became a really popular pet
and that as babies these creatures are tiny and easily manageable pets, but that they
grow and become more difficult and expensive to keep.
● Look at the examples of items that were sold based around these cartoon characters
and ask the children to think of other cartoon characters who have been the catalyst for
production of such items.
…continued on the next slide
2nd spread: Why are there so many terrapins in the UK? continued…
● You could develop this idea into a problem solving activity with money using mental
calculation strategies for example ask them to make up prices for each item, give them a
budget and ask them to work out the different items they could buy within their budget.
How many possibilities are there?
● Extend this by providing Argos catalogues or similar and ask the children to work in
small groups, cutting out some of the toys that they would choose to buy and to make up
a price list. Ask questions from this e.g. how much more for x than y, how much for
two/three/four of z?
3rd spread: Did you know…..?
● Discuss the fact that terrapins are the oldest living creatures on the planet. Ask the
children to research when people first think they were around and to find out how these
creatures are the same today and how they are different (eg. their bodies were little
larger and they had small teeth).
● Look at a globe, if possible an interactive one. Ask the children to identify the Antarctic
and Arctic. Why don’t they think terrapins can survive there? You could explore
temperatures and compare them with those of the UK, bringing in negative numbers and
plotting them on number lines or thermometers, asking for differences in temperatures.
You could ask them to represent this data using line graphs. After that you could explore
mode, range, median and mean temperatures.
● Discuss and measure the distances from these places and your location in the UK. You
could use this to practise converting from miles to kilometres and vice versa. You could
ask the children to make a map and plot a journey from the Arctic to the UK and on to
the Antarctic working out the distances and scaling them down.
● Locate the tropical areas of the world and, again, compare temperatures and also rainfall
making line graphs to show the data. Discuss why terrapins like these climates.
● Focus on the fact that they live for an average of 15 to 20 years. Discuss averages, write
a selection of numbers on the board and ask children to find the average of them. You
could make up some ages of terrapin deaths and ask them to work out the average age
of these!
● Talk about the word clutch, what does it mean? What does it mean in this context?
Younger children could identify the months on a calendar when the female terrapin lays
her eggs. They could talk about which month comes before or after April and July and
identify the other possible months for egg laying.
…continued on the next slide
3rd spread: Did you know…..? continued…
● Give the children digit cards and ask them to show you the number of eggs the female
lays. They could make different numbers of eggs out of plasticine, play-doh or similar
and hide them in the sand tray for a friend to find.
● A baby terrapin is about the size of a 10p coin, ask the children to measure the diameter
of one of these coins. You could use this as an opportunity to explore circles. You could
ask them to make one that is the size of an adult, using a pair of compasses if
appropriate (by using a six inch radius) to compare the two sizes.
● Younger children could draw round 10p coins, colour them appropriately, cut them out
and make a ‘nursery’ for several baby terrapins! How many did they make? How many
did a group make? How many did the class make? Use this as an opportunity to practise
one to one correspondence or addition of groups of small numbers. You could make a
terrapin poster with these, labelling with numbers.
● You could ask the children to find items that weigh between 6 to 10g. They could use
plasticine to make a baby terrapin of the correct weight, estimating first of course.
● You could ask the children to research more facts about today’s terrapins and make up a
fact file.