Impeyan Education

In today's world, education is all about getting out of the classroom to discover information on a practical level.  However, legislation and rising costs mean that practical external activities for children and adults are becoming harder and harder to organise.

At Impeyan, we bring the outside world to you.  For over 30 years we have been providing practical natural history demonstrations in schools, colleges and for private events and functions.  In fact, we are the longest continually running establishment in our field.  There are three main keys to our success.  Firstly, we believe that allowing students practical interaction is a vital aid to retaining information, especially when it is done in a light, informal way.  Secondly, due to the extensive work we do with our endangered wildlife breeding projects, we are able to bring animals which it is just not possible to see outside zoos.  Thirdly, all of our presenters are highly knowledgeable, experienced and enthusiastic - we all love what we do! 

All our presentations, lectures and demonstrations are tailored to cover the relevant natural history parts of the national curriculum.  The presentations have been designed around the national curriculum to target many of the requirements and objectives students are trying to achieve.  Your students can therefore touch on many of the natural history elements in one presentation.  They also go into more detail and include other aspects of biology and geography to excite and encourage the students' enthusiasm to learn about and explore the natural world and to give a sound base for future studies.

 Educational Presentations

Our educational presentations and general themed talks are designed to cover points in the national curriculum. A mixture of different Impeyan animals can encompass such themes as camouflage, habitats, biodiversity, food chains, textures (very good for visually impaired people, young children and people with social needs) and many other topics to include curriculum subjects. Below we have detailed these topics. A minimum of one hours worth of presentations must be booked at any one time.

The presentations start with birds and then move through the different major parts of the animal kingdom (except fish, for practical reasons!); invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles and mammals are all covered.  They give a fascinating and unique insight into the major features of the groups as well as looking at some of the adaptations the individual animals have developed through time and evolution.  The presentations go into varying depths depending on the age range of the group.  Adaptations to the presentations are made to accommodate mixed age groups.  We also work extensively with special needs schools and groups.  Throughout the presentations, members of the audience are asked to volunteer to assist with handling the animals under our expert supervision.

The animals we bring out are all hand-reared by members of the Impeyan Group or by people we work with on our endangered animal breeding programmes, or handled from an early age.  This allows the continuation of our exemplary health and safety record and also ensures that the animals are completely happy about coming out with us.  None of our endangered animals or animals kept on a dangerous wild animal licence go out on presentations and if an animal is not happy about going out on a particular day, we will not take it.

 We also offer presentations tailoured to more specific topics:

Mini Beasts

 Our mini-beasts presentations may include stick insects, cockroaches, spiders, scorpions, millipedes, mantids and snails to name a few of our species. These presentations are half an hour in duration.

Rainforests

Our rainforest presentations may include different reptiles and amphibians, we also have fruit bats, tenrecs, parrots, owls, sugar gliders and invertebrates. The rainforest presentations can be for half an hour or 45 minutes duration.

Worksheets

By clicking on the icon below you will be able to view a selection of worksheets designed around our presentations. They can be used afterwards to reinforce the children's learning. You can print off as many as you wish at no charge.