Lesson Idea

Testing animal intelligence – a role-play lesson

Are you looking for an engaging way to help students learn about how animals learn? This lesson will let students explore animal cognition and how animals can solve puzzles as an extension of one of our adapted research articles on ravens’ cognitive abilities. In this activity, students role-play as scientist or animal and use four (of eight) experiments to observe how animals can learn.

Suitable for students in 2nd-8th grade, with adjustments.

Activity link: Lesson plan (PDF)
Reading extension: SJK-adapted article
Level: Grades 2-8

Download Lesson Plan

Download Article

Part 1: Getting Started

Invite students to probe the concept of “intelligence” and how we measure it scientifically. Watch a video together and then ask students to begin researching these concepts independently.

Continue the group discussion of animal cognition. You can see a full set of discussion questions in the Lesson Plan.

Part 2: Reading Activity

Individually or in groups, have the students read the article How do ravens’ thinking skills
compare with apes’? published in Science Journal for Kids. Answer the assessment questions at the end of the article (teacher’s key available on the same page). Discuss as a class:

Why did the authors need to adjust the test?
What other animals might need adjustments and why?

For younger students, you might read the article aloud together and explain as you go along.

*Read: How do ravens’ thinking skills compare with apes’?*

Part 3: Role-Play Activity

In this activity, students will take turns playing the role of scientists and birds (or other animals, if desired). Younger students might make paper beaks to use on their hands to enhance play. In scientist-bird pairs, students will select and conduct four (of eight) experiments to test spatial memory, object permanence, addition, gaze following, and relation cognition skills. In each experiment, the bird attempts to “win” a cotton ball from the scientist by successfully completing the task using only animal-appropriate communication. When each experiment is over, the cotton ball is placed in either the “scientist” or “animal” jar based on the bird’s success. This creates a tally of results as different pairs rotate through that experiment. When all birds have completed all four experiments, switch the roles and have the new scientists (formerly the birds) conduct the remaining four experiments on the new birds (formerly the scientists). You can see a full set of experimental designs and rules for each role in the Lesson Plan.

Part 4: Discussion

Once all eight experiments are conducted, discuss the experience as a class. Without showing the results yet, ask the class which experiments were the easiest for the animals to do and which were the hardest. Then reveal the results and probe further into what concept each experiment attempted to measure. You can see a full set of discussion questions in the Lesson Plan.

Part 5: Writing Extension

If time allows, or as a homework extension, students can write reflectively on the lesson using provided prompts, and then choose a new animal and its cognitive abilities to explore through research.

That’s Not All!

Don’t forget to check out the extra resources located on the article’s page and browse for other related articles on our site, including an English-language audio version of this article and a written translation in Bulgarian. This article also includes two Ask-A-Scientist video interviews with original researchers Dr. Miriam Sima and Dr. Simone Pika.