It’s not every day that an elephant shows up at your school.
But that’s exactly what happened on Thursday, March 30, at Dallas ISD’s Dan D. Rogers Elementary School. Well, sort of.
Ellie the Elephant is a realistic-looking, animatronic robot elephant that talks. Ellie tells a story about being captured in the wild, abused and forced to work in the circus. The program aims to teach empathy to schoolchildren about how animals are sometimes treated in captivity. Her story ends happily, as she is rescued and sent to live in an animal sanctuary.
This year, Ellie has spoken to 25,000 students across the country about the importance of kindness.
At Rogers, the program also touched on how abusive treatment of animals is a form of bullying.
The program is coordinated by Teach Kind, the educational arm of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) organization.
