Reviewed by Beth Karas
SCHOOL SUBJECTS: science, research and environmental studies
GRADE LEVEL: all ages
PLATFORM USED FOR EVALUATION: Mac Power PC
HARD DISK OR CD-ROM?:CD-ROM
TIME TO PLAY: varies
RATING: 10
When you first run Animals! 2.0, you arrive at the splash screen. Here you can choose between three options. The overview gives you help and advice on the program, the main menu is a map of the zoo, and quit is to exit the program.
The main menu is a map of the San Diego Zoo. You can get anywhere from here. You have fourteen options to choose from. The Biomes, zoo gardens, jungle bungalow, navigation Palette, A-Z, research center, kids center, story theater, creature features, inside the zoo, the water hole, tours, nursery, library.
The biome exhibit shows the worldÕs ten bioclimatic zones and the animals that live in it. Some examples are the desert or the tropical rain forest. Pictures, video clips, animal sounds, and text are available. You can explore an animal and learn about its problems in the world today.
The zoo gardens is an exhibit showing botanical gardens. In the garden, plants are raised for the animals. The garden is beautiful. It includes text and pictures. It also talks about endangered plants. The jungle bungalow is all about the jungle. You can visit wild animals here and play a game.
The navigation Palette appears at the top of the screen. You can do many things with these buttons like return to the main menu, backtrack, go to the library, get help, etc.
A-Z is the animals in alphabetical order. You can click on a letter and get various animals, pictures, and text. The research center allows you to find out lots of information on endangered species. The kids corner is designed for younger children. Here you can see pictures, dinosaurs, and read stories. The story theater allows you to pick a story and read it. You can point to a story to see it's title and summery.
The creature features exhibit is all about bugs and creatures. See pictures and watch videos. Inside the zoo shows you more about the zoo and how it works inside the zoo. It also gives the history of the zoo. The water hole is a ride to see all wild animals. The tours take you to particular exhibits in the zoo starting with the lions. The nursery shows you baby animals and how they are cared for. The library allows you to do research on everything in the zoo.
In this program, you can also zoom in and out on the pictures. You can print information out. There are unbelievable graphics and online help.
This program has everything that you need. You can always get help, and you can quit at any time. It is full of information on plants and animals. The video clips are amazing to watch and you can hear the sounds of all the amimals. Everyone should get a chance to try this program. I cannot find anything wrong with it. It is very organized, it can appeal to all cultures, and the material is presented in a way to appeal to a wide range of learning styles. Students can read text, see pictures and videos, and read stories about specific animals. It is also very easy to use. Children will be able to work on this program independently and will be able to understand what they are doing.
I recommend this program to teachers, parents and children of all ages. It is really something to see and worth buying.
There are many different lessons you could use with this program. Another type of lesson that could be used would confirm the student's understanding on this program. You could set up a scavenger hunt to find all different things. For example, I would tell them to find a place in the Grassland that has a specific animal and location. The children would try to find this and compete against one another to find it first. This would show me as a teacher how well the students understood this program This program offers a lot to students. This program keeps the students interested in what they are learning about. Therefore, they will learn a lot in an efficient manner.