The new Year 10 'Animal Behaviour and Welfare' class has acquired some class pets and students are loving learning how to care for the five week old rats.

When Nayland College teachers were given the opportunity last year to put forward proposals for new junior modules, Primary Industries teacher Esther Hancock jumped at the chance to teach something that links both her passions and her knowledge.  

"I taught agriculture for ten years but I'm a vegetarian and I know what kids like is the whole working with animals, learning about animals, but not necessarily to eat them! So I thought oh, I'm given an opportunity here to teach something that I'm enthusiastic about and I know that students will be enthusiastic about."

And so the new Year 10 'Animal Behaviour and Welfare' module was created.

In speaking with Kayla Rautenbach, Bianca Rush and Cheyanne Vallance, all three agreed that they are enjoying the different learning that is taking place in the module, in particular learning about 'Ethology' (the study of animal behaviour) and contact with animals. 

"Oh I like it very much," said Kayla. "It's very informative. It's nice to take different modules to get a taste of different career paths, that's what I'm doing it for, because I plan to be a zoologist or a vet."

While Mrs Hancock didn't originally intend to get rats for the class, when Kayla mentioned that her pet rat at home had just had a litter of 14 she thought that was "just perfect."

"These rats are a model for other animals," she said. "[They] are easy, cheaply kept animals and we can show [the students] training [and] show them how to care for animals."

The class have had the five and a half week old rats for just one week and today 'Linguine' (white) and 'Remi' (black and white) were allowed out of the cage for the first time. 

The students are rostered into groups to take turns sharing the responsibility of caring for Linguine and Remi in amongst their other classwork. 

When asked what she is enjoying about having rats in the classroom Cheyanne answered, "That I've got responsibility to clean [the cages], care for them and give them lots of water."

Mrs Hancock is loving the enthusiasm of the students and all the different things they are able to do together as a class. Currently students are investigating their favourite animal species and they hope to visit the Nelson SPCA later in the module.

Kayla still rats available for sale so if you are interested please see below:

RATS FOR SALE

• Nine available
  
• 5.5 weeks old 
• $10 each

Phone Kayla Rautenbach on 027 688 4930 for more details.

Also, students from Mrs Hancock's other Year 10 module 'Grow Your Own Business' are selling succulents priced at $2-$5. Email esther.hancock@nayland.school.nz if you're interested!