ANIMAL CRUELTY

Puppy Mills

Fifth graders in downtown Brooklyn created an “Adopt Don’t Shop” campaign to help prevent animal abuse and euthanasia of animals bred in mills. At the start of the project, they wanted to help ban kill shelters in New York City. During their research, including meetings with advocates in the field, they discovered that the root cause of animal euthanasia is the over-breeding of puppies and other animals to sell in pet stores. They also discovered that the conditions of most puppy breeding mills are inhumane and severely under-regulated. Deciding they could have the most impact by educating their school community and encouraging them to adopt pets from local shelters, instead of purchasing them at pet stores or from breeders, they published and distributed this “Adopt Don’t Shop” newsletter.

Animal Testing

Another group of fifth graders in Brooklyn created an advocacy campaign to help prevent animal testing by U.S. laboratories creating cosmetic products. They organized a petition drive to support the federal Humane Cosmetics Act and shared the results with their congressional representative. They also created an awareness raising campaign for their school community that provided detailed information about how animals are abused in labs that use animal testing, as well as how consumers can use their financial power to persuade cosmetic companies to test their products without harming animals.