Jane Goodall Story for Kids

welcome to bedtime history hello this is breck [Music] do you have a special toy that helps you go to sleep at night maybe a bear or a rabbit or a penguin lots of kids have stuffed animals that help keep them safe and cozy at night the famous scientist jane goodall also had a special stuffed animal when she was a child her story starts back in the 1930s in london and it was her father who gave her the special animal its name was jubilee and jubilee was a chimpanzee her father didn't know it at the time but chimpanzees would turn out to be a very important part of jane's life as a grown-up she would become a primatologist a person who studies apes and monkeys [Music] growing up jane was obsessed with all kinds of animals not just chimpanzees when she was a toddler she brought worms into her bed because she was curious about them instead of getting mad when she found her daughter carefully watching her wriggly new friends jane's mother told her gently that worms couldn't survive inside and needed to be outside in the dirt i don't know but maybe this is what made her father think that she needed a special stuffed animal to sleep with living in the city jane didn't have a lot of opportunities to watch animals that's why it was so exciting when she got to visit a relative's farm when she was four at the farm she was given the job of gathering eggs that the chickens had laid being a very curious child jane wanted to know how the hens laid their eggs she watched them pecking around the yard but they never laid eggs there she watched them go onto their hen house but couldn't really see them laying the eggs there either she asked the grownups in her family but they wouldn't tell her either so jane hatched a plan she knew that the chickens laid their eggs on a special nest in the hen house so she decided to go inside watch quietly and wait so one morning that's exactly what she did she crawled into the hen house covered herself in hay and sat in a dark corner and she waited and waited for hours the grown-ups had no idea where she was and became very worried as the day wore on and jane didn't come home they started looking for her calling her name as they walked all around the fields and the surrounding area but still jane patiently waited and watched finally late in the afternoon her patience paid off she saw him lay an egg she burst out of the hen house hey stuck to her clothes and hair shouting to her parents about her discovery fortunately jane's mother again saw things from her daughter's perspective she sat down with jane and listened while she told her all about her discovery how chickens lay eggs jane's mother realized that she had a curious determined and patient daughter and wanted to support and encourage her [Music] inspired by the book tarzan and the apes jane decided at age 10 that she wanted to go to africa to study animals and write books about them at the time most grown-ups around her thought this was a crazy idea world war ii was raging in europe and africa was known back then as a dark continent because not many europeans had explored it and it wasn't easy to travel there people also thought back then that the adventures like the one jane was dreaming of were just for boys but jane's mother was not like most grown-ups as always she supported her daughter she told her that it wouldn't be easy but if she worked hard and took any opportunity that came along she could do whatever she set her mind to as a young woman jane continued to dream of going to africa to study animals her opportunity finally came when she was 23 and a friend invited her to visit kenya she moved back to her parents home and worked very hard for a whole summer to earn enough money to make the journey finally she made enough to buy a ticket on a boat and made the first part of her dream come true she was on her way to africa when she was in africa jane met the famous anthropologists louis and mary leakey lewis was impressed by jane and hired her to work as a secretary in tanzania where he and his wife were doing their own research after a few years he sent jane to the gumby preserve in tanzania to study chimpanzees the second part of jane's dream was coming true but it wasn't as simple as packing her bags and heading into the forest as one of the first women in primatology the british managers of the preserve thought that jane wouldn't be safe as a young woman working in the wilderness the forest there was a thick tangle of trees plants and vines and there were dangerous animals to worry about jane's tools when she went out to observe the animals were basic a notebook binoculars and some food but if the managers of the gombe preserve were afraid for jane it didn't make a difference to her instead of being afraid when she went to the forest for the first time chain said that she felt like she was coming home to a place where she belonged jane's way of working with chimpanzees was unconventional for the time at this point she still hadn't gone to college or gotten a degree so she didn't know how researchers normally did things she gave names to the animals she observed like graybeard goliath and flow instead of numbers she would watch them quietly for hours so they got used to her and would sometimes even approach her this allowed jane to get much closer than any other scientist had before but even though she didn't do things the way a primatologist was supposed to jane's methods turned out to work very well with patience and perseverance she was able to observe many things about chimpanzees that no one had ever noticed before she got to know each animal as an individual and saw that each chimp had a unique personality a lot like humans she observed them hugging kissing and patting each other on the back they seem to have human-like emotions too to feel sad happy and angry they seem to love and show affection for each other she also saw them making tools which is hard for other scientists at the time to believe many of them thought that only humans made tools but she had seen chimpanzees use pieces of grass or sticks to fish termites out of holes in the mounds they would use rocks to pound open fruit child chimpanzees even have toys they used vines to play tug of war [Music] after jane had spent a few years observing chimpanzees at gombe louis leakey arranged for her to attend cambridge university to earn a doctoral degree so she went back to england for a while but returned to gombe to continue her work there afterwards she set up a research center at gombe where scientists still study chimpanzees today and just like she decided when she was 10 years old she wrote several books on her experience with the apes dr jane as people often call her now still works on behalf of chimpanzees she spends her time traveling around the world meeting and talking to people about how to help protect nature and animals she loves speaking with young people especially and carries a stuffed monkey not a chimp with her everywhere she goes she believes that young people can be very powerful and change the world if grown-ups just listen to them sometimes a person can make a difference in unexpected ways and small actions can add up to bigger changes [Music] dr jane used her patience and determination quietly watching chimpanzees for hundreds of hours to learn things that no one else ever suspected now she uses that quiet patience and determination to inspire others to have hope and work to make the world a better place i'll leave you today with a quote from dr jane herself each and every one of us makes a difference each and every day and we have a choice what kind of difference are we going to make i hope dr jane's story inspired you to think about things you can do to make a difference for the better thanks for listening to this episode about jane goodall and be sure to tune in next monday for a new episode

Channel: Bedtime History

Views: 108,736

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Id: OI8p3uk7z74

Length: 9min 10sec (550 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 25 2022