How we see animals
Learning Resource
Gallery plan
Artwork: Allora & Calzadilla,
The Great Silence, 2014
The Making Nature exhibition is
divided into four areas: Ordering,
Displaying, Observing and
Making. Each explores a different
aspect of our relationship
with animals through objects,
photographs, animal specimens,
films and contemporary artworks.
Area 1: Ordering
The origins of our scientific
classification and organisation of
the natural world, and alternatives
imagined through art and literature
Charles Waterton, The Nondescript. c.1824.
Courtesy of Errol Fuller; photo by Roddy Paine
Exhibition entrance
Artwork: Detail from Marcus Coates,
Shared Traits of the Hominini (Humans,
Bonobos and Chimpanzees), 2015
Area 2: Displaying
Animals on display in museums,
literature and film, and how these
depictions influence the way we
think about them
Med Now
A 3D-printed replica of a Barbary lion
skull. The Trustees of the Natural History
Museum, London
Area 3: Observing
From the changing nature of zoos
to natural history documentaries,
are we looking at animals but not
seeing them?
Toy zoo set, Chimpanzees’ Tea Party. Museum
of London,1946–50
Area 4: Making
From domesticated dogs
to biosteel goats, examples
of how animals have been
intentionally altered by humans
through selective breeding and
genetic engineering
Budgie (Melopsittacus undulatus) specimens
illustrating colour variation. The Trustees of the
Natural History Museum, London
Toilets
Exit
Introduction
The question of how humans
relate to other animals has
captivated us for centuries.
Making Nature: How we see
animals brings together over
100 objects, photographs,
animal specimens, films and
contemporary artworks to
examine the origins of our
ideas about other animals and
the consequences of these
for ourselves and our planet.
The exhibition provides rich
opportunities for students
to explore ideas, develop
understanding and challenge
their thinking across four themes:
ordering, displaying, observing
and making.
Exhibition activity
The exhibition’s balance of artworks,
cultural objects, scientific ideas and
specimens will support cross-curricular
enquiry and moral questioning about
our relationship with animals. Its
journey – from Carl Linnaeus’s ordering
and classification of animals, through
Darwin’s theory of evolution, to selective
breeding and fascinating examples of
genetic engineering – will prompt science
students to consider the development
of scientific ideas while raising ethical
questions. For art students, the
juxtaposition of contemporary artworks
with specimens, objects and images will
provide a springboard for generating
innovative ideas and a stimulating
environment for critiquing the work of
other artists.
This resource has been designed to
support GCSE science, GCSE art
and design, and cross-curriculum
learning. For each of these subject
areas there is a pre-visit classroom
activity, an activity to support students
during a visit to Making Nature, and a
post-visit activity to do back at school.
Use the gallery plan on page 2 and the
table below to help prepare and organise
your students so that you make the most
of your visit.
We recommend you make photocopies
of the activities you will be doing during
your visit so that each student has their
own copy. You must do this before
you arrive.
You will need to bring…
Organisation and timing
A copy of the cross-curriculum exhibition
trail and pen/pencil for each student.
Trail lasts approximately 45 minutes and
can be conducted in pairs or groups.
Art and design: Investigating and critiquing A sketchbook, copy of the art and
design exhibition activity, pen and pencil
for writing and drawing, and camera
(optional) for each student.
The critiquing activity can be conducted
in pairs or groups. It is recommended
students spend 1–2 hours in the
exhibition.
Science: Selective breeding and genetic
engineering
Activity lasts approximately 45 minutes
and can be conducted in pairs or groups.
Cross-curriculum: Our relationship
with animals
A copy of the science exhibition activity
and pen/pencil for each student.
Duck-billed platypus. Hand-coloured copperplate engraving from George Shaw and Frederick Nodder’s The Naturalist’s Miscellany, 1799. Wellcome Library
Pre-visit activities
Cross-curriculum: The moral
question
Working in groups, have your students
make a list of current issues and debates
about the relationship between humans
and animals. You can use prompts
– such as animal welfare, genetic
engineering, animal conservation,
captivity, etc – to help structure
their thinking.
• Which issues particularly interest them
and why?
• What are their opinions?
• What have they based these on?
• Who or what are they influenced by?
Have your class make a shortlist of
‘hot topics’ for debate: “This house
believes…”
Art and design: Generating ideas
Great artworks are driven by emotion
and a desire to communicate something
to the world. Using the activities below
as a starting point, get your students to
generate ideas for their own artworks
about our relationship with animals.
Remind them to focus on things,
issues, places, activities and themes
that really interest them or matter to
them personally.
1. Brainstorming
Hold a class discussion or group
discussion about the relationship
between humans and animals. Structure
your students’ thinking and collate
responses using questions such as:
• Where do we see animals?
• How do we use them?
• What do we know about them, and
how do we know this?
• What do they mean to us?
• Have our ideas about animals
changed?
• Are we animals too?
• How do animals see us?
2. Researching
Assign each student one of the following
artists from the exhibition, and then get
them to research their artist and consider
how they use their medium to comment
on the relationship between humans and
animals:
• Marcus Coates, whose works explore
how we use our relationship with
animals and nature to define our
‘humanness’
• Edwina Ashton, who uses film,
animation, sculpture, drawing and
costume to explore our perceptions of
animals and nature
• Beatrix Potter, whose
watercolour children’s illustrations
anthropomorphise animals into
popular characters with human traits,
emotions – and clothes!
Students can then extend their research
through examining the work of other
artists, such as:
• Frida Kahlo, whose pets included
monkeys, dogs, birds and a fawn, and
which featured in her paintings
• Salvador Dali, whose surreal and
symbolic use of animals features in
both his 2D and 3D works
• George Stubbs, deemed the foremost
animal painter of the 18th century, who
was commissioned to paint Australian
animals such as the kangaroo and
dingo from descriptions, sketches
and pelts collected by Captain Cook’s
crew, to illustrate these ‘exotic’
creatures to Europeans – having never
seen the animals in real life!
• Johannes Stötter, whose work
transforms people into animals through
body art
3. Consolidating
Using the results of their brainstorming
and artist research, have your students
create individual mind maps (with ‘Our
relationship with animals’ as the central
theme) to record their findings, thoughts,
and ideas for their own artworks.
Your students can then continue their
research at the Making Nature exhibition.
Science: Selective breeding and
genetic engineering
Working in pairs or groups, have your
students discuss their reactions to
examples of selective breeding or genetic
engineering in animals and humans, and
then get them to group the examples
under the headings ‘Right’, ‘Wrong’ or
‘Unsure – need more information’. Your
students can use the examples below or
conduct research to find their own:
• Increasing milk yield in cows so that
milk is cheaper
• Breeding cats and dogs that do not
lose their fur
• Choosing the sex of your baby
• Eradicating diseases like sickle-cell
anaemia or cystic fibrosis
• Breeding ‘pure-bred’ or pedigree dogs
and cats
• Creating fish that grow twice as fast
but taste just the same
• Decreasing flatulence in cows to
reduce the greenhouse effect
• Producing cancer-fighting chicken’s
eggs to help protect us from disease
• Breeding featherless chickens so that
meat is cheaper
• Breeding endangered mammals such
as giant pandas and tigers
• Breeding endangered insects such as
bees and flies
Combine the results in a whole-class
table, using the same headings, and
use the similarities and differences
in the results to discuss and debate
your students’ rationales, using the
following questions:
• Is it easy to define where you would
‘draw the line’?
• Can you influence each other’s
decisions? Should you?
• What further information would be
useful?
Post-visit activities
Cross-curriculum: Debating
Working in groups, have your students
discuss some of the issues raised in the
Making Nature exhibition to decide on a
focus for a debate. Each group should
create a debate statement beginning
“This house believes…” to submit to
the class. Further ideas could also be
submitted, such as:
This house believes…
• people should not keep pets
• animals have rights
• wild animals should not be kept in
captivity
• animals are equal to human beings
• humans should use animals to protect
and preserve the human species
• animals should be selectively bred or
genetically modified to benefit humans
Through a democratic process, get your
students to choose the final focus for
a whole-class debate. Students could
debate in role, eg as farmers, medical
researchers, the president of the Vegan
Society, etc.
Art and design: Developing ideas
Students can use the issues explored
and material collected during their
exhibition investigation to create their own
artworks.
Many of the artworks, images and
objects in the exhibition challenge our
traditional views of animals and the
way we position ourselves as humans
in relation to the rest of the natural
world. Your students could consider the
following questions:
• Are we looking without seeing?
• Can we really organise nature?
• Do we stereotype animals?
• Are humans just another animal?
• How or why do we artificially
alter animals?
• What might the consequences of
this be?
Your students could explore ideas
creatively through the following activities:
The exhibition featured a ‘rainbow’ of
budgies. Play with pattern, colour or
texture to explore the idea of humans
artificially altering animals. Use printing
techniques to create repeated images
of a chosen animal, changing the colour
or pattern of key features each time. Or,
change the colour, pattern or texture
of the same animal across its form,
blending each of your choices into the
next through detailed drawing or painting.
Alternatively, use textile and collage
techniques to alter the texture of the fur,
skin, shell or feathers of your animal. How
far might this go? Might designer pets be
bred to match our home colour schemes
and furnishings?
The installation Ming of Harlem
challenges some of our conventional
ideas about wild animals and pets. Use
digital techniques to manipulate and/or
animate your work, placing a wild animal
in a domestic or urban environment, or
a domesticated animal in the wild. Play
with scale, colour, pose and behaviours
to represent a key message, idea or issue
inspired by your visit to the exhibition.
Anthropomorphism – giving nonhuman things, like animals, human
characteristics – is a key feature of
Edwina Ashton’s and Beatrix Potter’s
work, and of the Making Nature
exhibition. Choose an everyday scene
from your life – from at home or school,
playing sport, out with friends, etc
– and record it through a sketch or
photograph. Then, explore the human
forms, expressions and poses in the
scene using modelling clay. Finally, repeat
the process but replace each human
with an animal, manipulating the key
features of the animal to represent the
human forms, expressions and poses.
How do tails, ears or wings contribute
to or challenge your scene? Why did
you choose your particular animals?
Why do we anthropomorphise animals?
How does this impact on our views and
understanding of them?
Science: Selective breeding and
genetic engineering
Working with the same partners or
groups as before, get your students to
add new examples of selective breeding
or genetic engineering – collected during
their visit to Making Nature – to their
pre-visit groupings and decisions. Have
their views changed? Why? Then, have
your students conduct further research
into the benefits and risks of genetically
modifying animals and other organisms,
and get them to develop an individual,
group or whole-class code of ethics
for the selective breeding and genetic
modification of animals.
Further information and
resources
A wealth of useful information to support
student research can be found on the
Wellcome Collection and Center for
PostNatural History websites.
wellcomecollection.org
postnatural.org/Specimen-Vault
Wellcome Images is one of the world’s
richest and most unique collections,
with themes ranging from medical and
social history to contemporary healthcare
and biomedical science. Search and
download images from this vast library,
or browse the galleries of carefully
selected images for art, science and
history students.
wellcomeimages.org
Cross-curriculum exhibition trail: Our relationship with animals
This trail can be undertaken
in pairs or groups and lasts
approximately 45 minutes.
Familiar
Our ideas about the relationship between humans and animals have been developed
and influenced by science, art and popular culture – and they keep changing.
1. Take a quick look around all four areas of the exhibition: ‘Ordering’, ‘Displaying’,
‘Observing’ and ‘Making’. Spend no longer than 10 minutes on this. Find and record
in the table below something that is:
Unfamiliar
Intriguing
Share your choices with a partner. Why did you each make these choices? Are any of
them the same?
2. Explore the exhibition with your partner or in a group. Collect different examples
that show how humans see themselves as superior to or more important than
animals, or of humans using animals for their own benefit. Sketch or write your
findings on the spider diagram. Include examples from all four areas of the exhibition.
An example has been included to get you started. Feel free to add more lines.
Cropped edition of a print
by G. Scotin et James Cole
after Chatelain and Gravelot,
Adam naming the animals,
Wellcome Library
Humans
and animals
Talk about your opinions and feelings about each example. Circle all those you
think are morally ‘wrong’. Are there any circumstances that might make you think
differently?
3. Find these objects and artworks in the exhibition with your partner or group. Look at where they are positioned and some of the
objects around them. For each, discuss:
A. What you think it is trying to say about our relationship with animals
B. How it challenges the idea of humans being superior to animals
Record your thoughts in this table:
Area 1: Ordering
A
B
A
B
A
B
Gulliver’s Travels
book by Jonathan Swift
Area 1: Ordering
The Great Silence
art installation by
Allora & Calzadilla
Area 3: Observing
Ming of Harlem
film by Phillip Warnell
4. What is anthropomorphism? Find the Squirrels Playing Cards diorama in ‘Area 2: Displaying’. Read the label and write a
definition of anthropomorphism here:
Where have you seen examples of anthropomorphism in your own life?
Find these examples of anthropomorphised animals and complete the table:
Animal
How has it been made to appear human?
A group of toads
(Area 2: Displaying)
A weasel
(Area 2: Displaying)
A group of chimpanzees
(Area 3: Observing)
A polar bear and its cub
(Area 3: Observing)
Compare these to the poster for Regent’s Park Zoo in ‘Area 3: Observing’ and the artwork Moth by Edwina Ashton in ‘Area 2:
Displaying’. Discuss with your partner or group the following questions:
• How have they reversed anthropomorphism?
• Does our experience of anthropomorphism have an impact on our understanding of and feelings towards animals?
• If so, in what way?
5. The exhibition is full of amazing ideas and facts. Find one that really grabs you, that you would want to share – at home, on
social media, at school. Write or draw it here and find someone to share it with after you leave.
Did you know…
Art and design exhibition activity: Critiquing and investigating
Making Nature explores our
changing relationship with
animals. It is full of artworks,
photographs, films and
specimens to spark ideas
and inform your own artwork
on this theme. Record your
observations, thoughts,
reactions and ideas in your
sketchbook.
1. Take a quick look around all four areas
of the exhibition: ‘Ordering’, ‘Displaying’,
‘Observing’ and ‘Making’. Spend no
longer than 10 minutes on this. Find
something that:
Makes you smile
Surprises you
Take some time to look at each artwork
and make sketches of it. Discuss and
make notes around your sketches based
on these questions:
• Do you like it? Why? Why not?
• What issues are being explored?
• What appeals to you visually about this
artwork?
Record your responses, ideas and
observations in your sketchbook through
annotated sketches, close observational
drawings and/or photographs.
Remember to reference these with as
much information about the source as
possible – eg its name, date, maker, and
where you saw it.
• Which media and techniques have
been used? How do these contribute
to the overall message?
Tips for looking closer at objects,
specimens and images
• What is the artwork trying to say or get
us to think about?
• How does this relate to the theme of
‘Our relationship with animals’?
Intrigues you
• Did you find this work challenging?
Controversial? In what ways?
Record your choices in your sketchbook
through a quick sketch or note.
• Why should you care about it?
2. Work with a partner or in a group to
critique the following artworks:
• Look at the other objects and images
in the room. What might have inspired
the artists to create these works?
Shared Traits of the Hominini (Humans,
Bonobos and Chimpanzees), by Marcus
Coates (exhibition entrance)
Then, use these questions to explore
other artworks in the exhibition.
The Great Silence, by Allora & Calzadilla
(Area 1: Ordering)
Fatigues, by Abbas Akhavan (a taxidermy
series showing animals mounted
in postures that cast them as dead
creatures; a fox, badger and owl can be
found in different areas of the exhibition)
‘Area 2: Displaying’ features a mirror wall,
putting us and other visitors on display.
In ‘Area 3: Observing’ it becomes a glass
wall, allowing us to observe visitors. You
might choose to explore this idea as part
of your investigation.
3. Great artworks are driven by emotion
and a desire to communicate something
to the world. Explore the exhibition in
more detail. Focus on the sources,
issues and ideas that interest, intrigue or
surprise you – that make you think, react
or feel something. Your investigation
could centre around a particular element,
such as colour or form.
Scene from Ming of Harlem by Phillip Warnell. © Big Other Films 2016
Find out:
• What it is made of
• How old it is
• Where it came from
Consider:
• How does it make me feel?
• What would it feel like if I could
touch it?
• What would it say to me if it
could speak?
• Why do I find it interesting?
• Does it connect to my life? How?
Science exhibition activity:
Selective breeding and genetic engineering
This activity can be undertaken in groups or pairs and lasts approximately 45 minutes.
Go to ‘Area 4: Making’.
1. The objects on display in this area have been selected by the Center for PostNatural History. Read the ‘Making’ panel at the
entrance to this area. What is the Center for PostNatural History?
2. Find animals that have been altered by humans for different reasons. The listening posts and labels will give you more
information. Complete the table below, using suitable animals of your choice, but leave the ‘Animal name’ column blank.
Animal name
Altered characteristic
Benefit to humans
Head size and shape
Its appearance is pleasing to the
human owner
Swap tables with a partner. Can you find each other’s animals from the descriptions?
Discuss your answers together:
Why did you choose these animals?
What are your views on altering animals in this way?
Can you think of any ways you have benefited from selective breeding or genetic
engineering? Write one here:
White rat (Rattus norvegicus). Center for PostNatural History
3. Selective breeding to produce better crops and livestock was being carried out by farmers long before we understood how it
works. Explore ‘Area 1: Ordering’ and ‘Area 4: Making’. Complete the table with dates and information to show some of the many
scientists, theories and ideas that have influenced our understanding of selective breeding and genetic engineering over the
centuries. What might we discover in the future?
Room
Date
Scientific discovery, theory, idea or practice
Area 4: Making
pre-history
Farmers breed better crops and livestock by carefully choosing parents that show the
required characteristics. This is later called selective breeding and is still used today.
Conrad Gessner:
Area 1: Ordering
Area 1: Ordering
1735
Carl Linnaeus:
Area 1: Ordering
Charles Bonnet:
Area 4: Making
Charles Darwin:
1865
Area 4: Making
Gregor Mendel discovers hereditary ‘units’ (later called ‘genes’) are passed on from both
parents, one unit from each parent.
Reginald Punnett:
1953
James Watson and Francis Crick build on the work of Rosalind Franklin and Maurice
Wilkins to discover the structure of DNA – the molecules that carry genetic information.
Area 4: Making
1970s–present The first animals are artificially altered through genetic engineering – the practice of
producing new varieties by transferring DNA from one organism to another. The process
continues to be refined, producing increasingly specific variations.
Area 4: Making
Present day
Long Now Foundation:
Future
4. Go to ‘Area 1: Ordering’ – don’t forget to look at the artwork in the exhibition entrance.
Our attempts to organise nature through ordering and classification have been challenged by literature, artists, science and by
the natural world itself, and our ideas are still changing. Find three examples of these challenges and record them here through
sketching or writing:
Discuss the following questions:
Why is it important to challenge scientific ideas or practices?
Should the practice of artificially altering animals be challenged? Why?
Curriculum links
GCSE art and design
GCSE science
GCSE biology
AQA (8201–8206), Edexcel (2016) and
OCR (J170–J176)
AQA Entry Level Science (5960)
AQA (4401)
3.2 Component 2 – Biology:
Environment, evolution and inheritance
3.1 Development of scientific thinking
Knowledge and understanding: How
sources inspire the development of ideas
Skills: Develop ideas through
investigations informed by selecting and
critically analysing sources and record
experiences and observations, in a
variety of ways
Critical and contextual knowledge and
understanding
Social, moral, cultural and
spiritual learning
Enjoy learning about oneself, others and
the surrounding world; use imagination
and creativity; reflect; investigate moral
and ethical issues; appreciate diverse
viewpoints; appreciate cultural influences;
participate in culture opportunities
AQA Science A (4405)
3.2 How science works
B1.7 Genetic variation and its control
B1.8.1 Evolution
AQA Combined Science: Synergy
(8465)
4.6 Inheritance, variation and evolution
Edexcel (2BI01)
Development of scientific thinking
Topic 3: Genetics
Topic 4: Natural selection and genetic
modification
1.3 Development of scientific thinking
OCR Biology A
(Gateway Science J247)
4.3.3.8 Genetic modification
B5 Genes, inheritance and selection
AQA Combined Science: Trilogy
(8464)
B6.2 Feeding the human race
OCR Biology B
3.1 Development of scientific thinking
(Twenty First Century Science J257)
4.6 Inheritance, variation and evolution
B1 You and your genes
Edexcel Entry Level Science (8939)
Topic 1: Classification and variation
B6 Life on Earth past, present and future
B7 Ideas about science
Edexcel Combined Science (ISC0)
Development of scientific thinking
B4 Natural selection and genetic
modification
OCR Combined Science A and B
(J250 and J260)
B4 Community level systems
B5 Genes, inheritance and selection
B6 Global challenges
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