Ireland’s largest dog welfare charity, Dogs Trust, is bringing a new workshop to secondary schools nationwide that will teach teenagers about animal welfare through critical thinking and ethical dilemmas.
Research has shown that this helps children to make sound decisions, discover and evaluate their opinions and helps them to make thoughtful and confident decisions.
Fiona Gregan, Education and Community Manager at Dogs Trust Ireland, explains: “Dogs can play such an important role in our lives, offering unconditional love and companionship, which has been especially valuable over the past year.
“We want to nourish this bond and create further understanding of dogs and animal welfare, so what better medium to engage teenage minds than that of ethics?
“To offer hypothetical scenarios and encourage healthy discussion is something our team is immensely looking forward to and we plan to then continue to educate these pupils with annual visits, offering brand new workshops every year.”
The new workshop follows on from the success of the charity’s current nationwide primary school programme of workshops that educate children on safety around dogs and also touch on responsible dog ownership.
To coincide with the launch, Dogs Trust has launched a new online platform in which live online workshops can be booked for both primary and secondary age groups. Downloadable workshops are also available for the primary school audiences and fun exciting and engaging activities can accessed for both age groups via the “Kids Space” section of the charity’s website.
Workshops are also available face-to-face, where possible, in line with Dogs Trust’s rigorous Covid-19 guidelines and also through adhering to the schools COVID-19 response plan.
Please visit LearnWithDogsTrust.ie to make a booking and access the new online platform.
