This story was a group project from 4th grade students in Taiwan. Students were challenged to create a fictitious story based on the commonalities of their own experiences using the “Leadership and Global Impact” prompt through The Sharability Project.
[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-yaf9DvXqg’]
“Zimbawe and Bonga Save the World”
One day in Africa, two friends named Zimbawe and Bonga decided to go on an adventure through the safari. They often liked to see the elephants grazing in the grasslands. They like to sneak up quietly and watch them for hours. However, today, they were in for an unexpected experience. As they approached their usual hiding place they saw two poachers preparing to kill a helpless elephant.
“What are they doing?” Zimbawe asked.
“Poaching,” whispered Bonga.
“What’s that?”
“It’s when people hunt, kill and capture protected animals. Poaching is illegal in most countries; however, here in Africa, there aren’t any laws against it, which makes it very popular for people to do. Unfortunately, this means many animals; especially elephants and rhinos are becoming endangered. Some species have even become extinct already.”
“Oh, why do they want to do that?”
“The main reason people poach is because they are greedy and they want to make a lot of money. Poachers sell the animals and animal parts, for example, tusks, horns and skins to people so they can get a lot of money quickly. Some items, such as ivory, can cost up to thousands of dollars. Animals are also killed for food, clothes, wool, make up and jewelry.”
“What should we do now?”
Suddenly they noticed some rocks on the ground.
“Let’s throw these rocks to scare the elephant and make him run away.”
Zimbawe and Bonga pick up the rocks and throw them towards the elephants. Their plan worked and the elephants began to stampede out of the poacher’s way. In the dust, the boys were able to escape safely. They quickly ran to the police department to tell them what they saw.
The police men, Sanchez and Carlos, were interested to know what they saw. There were two poachers they had been after for quite a while. They had been seen poaching many different rare animals around the world and they wanted to capture them. After the boys told them everything they made a plan.
The next day they met at the police department and climbed into the jeep to go back to where they saw the poachers before. Fortunately, since the poachers didn’t get the elephant the day before, they had camped over night hoping the elephants would come back. After several hours of waiting they finally saw the elephants approaching and the poachers get ready to shoot one again.
Carlos and Sanchez jumped up and shouted, “Put your hands up, you’re under arrest!”
The poachers jumped back startled and dropped their gun. Carlos and Sanchez arrested the evil poachers and took them to jail. They thanked the boys for their help in catching the poachers and everyone went home happy.
Extra facts about endangered animals:
1. Some people in Asia buy tiger skin to get fashion rugs.
2. People also buy medicine made with rhino horns to cure diseases.
3. Different countries trade elephant tusks for ivory to make trinkets and other accessories.
