Design a Zoo Project: PBL, Map, Budget & Writing, Grades 3-5

Turn students into real zoo designers with this project-based learning pack for Grades 3-5. The class gets a letter from the mayor: design a zoo that keeps animals healthy and happy and gives visitors a great day out, with a ten-thousand-dollar budget. Teams research real animals, draw a zoo map on a grid, plan three habitats, spend the budget, write to invite families, and present their zoo to the class.

A teacher guide on page 2 gives a suggested two-week plan, and the project launch on page 3 brings the mayor's letter and the driving question: how can we design a zoo that keeps animals healthy and happy and gives visitors a great day out? Eight animal research cards cover African elephant, emperor penguin, giraffe, lion, giant panda, polar bear, zebra, and tiger, each with home, food, space, and care facts, plus a research notes sheet for two animals of the team's choice. A blank ten-by-ten coordinate grid, columns A to J and rows 1 to 10, is the zoo map, with a map-planning sheet, map key, and placement questions. Habitat planning sheets cover a savanna habitat, a polar habitat, and a rainforest habitat, each with shelter, food and water, space, plants, shade, grid size, and a sketch box, plus an animal care and enrichment plan with a daily keeper checklist. Budget pages give a priced item list for the ten-thousand-dollar budget, a worked example plan that totals nine thousand six hundred fifty dollars with three hundred fifty dollars left, a blank team budget table, and a step-by-step budget check with multiplication practice: four benches at one hundred twenty dollars each is four hundred eighty dollars, and ten signs at twenty-five dollars each is two hundred fifty dollars. A two-week timeline planner and a team roles and daily task planner cover leader, researcher, map designer, budget keeper, writer, and presenter. Persuasive writing pages give a reason-and-evidence planner and a finished Visit Our Zoo letter and poster draft page. A visitor guide offers a brochure front template with zoo name, welcome, small map, opening hours, and ticket price, and a brochure inside template with animals to see, zoo rules, and what to bring. A presentation planner assigns speaking parts for each team member with a practice and speaking checklist. A fifty-point rubric, five parts at ten points each, and a self-assessment and peer feedback sheet follow. Math and review pages work out habitat area on the grid, savanna four by three is twelve, polar three by three is nine, rainforest four by two is eight, twenty-nine squares in all, and an eight-animal habitat-and-food match challenge. A zoo vocabulary and reflection journal, a final showcase checklist, and a teacher-only answer key on page 30 with budget totals, habitat math, match answers, rubric totals, and notes for the open-ended pages finish the pack.