I'm going to be teaching a short class on animal rights. We're going to discuss vegetarianism and veganism, animal experimentation, animal shelters, animal abuse and neglect, dog fighting, breeding, all those kinds of things.
Are there any other topics that ye animal lubbers think I'm missing? I wanted to do a segment on the rights of not-so-cute animals like insects and spiders, but I'm not sure if these kids (high schoolers) are ready for it
Don't be a preachy faggot and you're fine.
Animal rights is not the same as animal welfare.
>>2082687
This.
It's all well and good to talk about vegatarianism and veganism, but don't make out like people are evil for eating meat, because they aren't and it's only being unnecessarily antagonistic.
A big topic most people don't think about is animal nutrition. You'd be surprised what shit people give to their dog or cat, let alone any other animals.
As for the rights of insects, just touch on the fact that it exists. I wouldn't bother actually exploring it.
What are you going to talk about? About the "creepy crawlers"?
>>2082684
I'd recommend trying the book "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Foer for a few topics about the environmental effect, somehow farming and its footprint on the earth always gets neglected in these discussions in favor of a morality debate.
Or that "humans have always farmed and ate meat."
I'm nowhere near as succint as the author but the guy writes in a very colloquial semi-autobiographical style while having proper references to academia so yeah definitely worth a look.
As for insects highschoolers almost definitely will not be interested unless you go for a gross-out segment on how farming insects for meals may be a very likely trend in our future due to spacial, temporal, and resource-based requirements being so much less than rearing livestock. You'll get a kneejerk reaction, definitely, but it should be easy to tie the two concepts I've suggested together in a way like: Since the 3rd world is copying American style factory farming -> more vegetable feed and land plots will be given to support the massively wasteful factory farm set up -> the farms expand -> reach a point where the majority of plant based crop land will be devoted to only supplying the meat industry (basically already happened in the US with the soy crop btw) -> eventually the Monsanto crop plots which have limited deadlines for producing viable crops WILL expire -> factory farms will have to cope -> insect farming becomes a more popular industry.
Certainly thats a doomsday type scenario but it should get them thinking.
Do highschoolers understand trophic levels? May be worth bringing that in.
Have fun, OP
Millennials literally aren't interested in anything, enjoy speaking to a bunch of blank faces with their eyes looking downward as they try to browse whatever snapbook instachat social networking thing is popular right now on their iPhone clandestinely so the real teacher doesn't notice
>>2082687
I was planning on presenting both sides. I'm not vegan myself, but I get where they're coming from and don't have anything against vegans, unlike many people.
I just wanted to expose students to all the issues so they're at least aware.
>>2082709
I'll check that out, thanks
>>2082729
Don't you have a bingo game to get to, grandpa?
Please start with the difference between animal right and animal welfare.
Far too many people have no idea that there is a difference.
Animal nutrition as previously said. I'm sure these people will have pets or will in the future, correct nutrition is very important, there is a lot of misinformation and bad commercially sold food out there. Teach them how to find the better commercial stuff. A lot of health issues can be avoided if people were to feed their pets the correct diet!
You can also go into the human benefits of pet keeping, instead of just animal keeping in general. Think the emotional/physical/social benefits of pet keeping.
>>2082684
Maybe touch on the changing views of invertebrates and their capacity for intelligence, consciousness and pain (inb4 that one faggot). You could do a bit on octopuses and their legal standing and move onto the recent research regarding crustaceans.
