Stimulus Response

Title: Stimulus Response
Author/Producer: The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour
Suggested Age Range: Ages 13-18
Item Type: Teachers’ guide, video, worksheets
Description: 26-minute video with discussion breaks after 5, 8, 14, and 19 minutes; 12-page teachers’ guide; two reproducible activity sheets

View the PDF versions of the teachers’ guide and worksheets.
Price: Free for TeachKind Network members
Suitable for the Following Subjects: Ethics, humane education, language arts, science, and social science
Misc:
(German)
Symbol Key
How to Order: To obtain the English or German version of this video, please order directly from ASAB. Alternatively, you can watch the video online.

Featuring scientists from Britain’s leading veterinary schools, this unique video teaches the five steps of the stimulus-response pathway by using examples from animals’ lives. In the video, viewers see how pigs perceive stimuli in the first moments of their lives, watch hens run obstacle courses to show that they have the mental ability and coordination to learn from videos, and become aware of calves’ internal and external effectors. Viewers see the ways in which these animals are able to respond to the stimuli in their environments.

Together, the video, teachers’ guide, and worksheets provide a fun and interactive way for students to explore the following subjects:

• The five steps in the stimulus-response pathway
• The senses and the difference between animals’ primary and secondary senses
• The creation of ethical and effective experimental designs to test hypotheses on animal behavior
• Interpreting data from experiments to draw conclusions
• Methods of learning, including habituation, conditioning, trial and error, and observational learning
• Using information about animal behavior to debate the ethics of factory-farming

TeachKind recommends that educators review all videotapes before showing them to students.

Suggested Uses: This video is primarily designed for biology and psychology teachers, but it is also of value to educators who want to give lessons in personal and social development, character education, humane education, and debate.