Hi Cayla! What a wonderful topic you've chosen.
I used to take my personal pets and do presentations at local schools. At that time I had several rescue iguanas, 4 beardies, 5 snakes, leopard geckos, a rat colony, cricket colony and 2 african grey parrots. The neighborhood kids used to ring my doorbell quite frequently for me to bring everyone outside for a visit.
Anyway, when I would do the presentations, I would give the teacher
care sheet copies of each of the animals in case the kids had questions after I had left. To start I would have a bottle of hand sanitizer passed around, and used again at the end. Very important. Even though all my babies had been tested negative for everything, I wanted to be 100 percent sure no one got sick. I had individual carriers, the plastic, vented cat/dog kind you can find anywhere. I used to go to the local humane society where I volunteered, and they'd have "yard sales" to raise a little extra cash. I'd buy up all the extra carriers and sanitize them before use with a diluted bleach solution. I'd keep the carriers covered up until it was time to take each one out, trying to give them a little calm down time before "performing", plus it really got the kids' interest with the suspense of what was under the cover. Made the presentation that much more of a surprise. Specifically with the beardies, I'd bring my two biggest, a male and a female, since they were the "laziest" and would just hang out no matter what was going on around them. As I'd talk about them, one on my shoulder, one stuck to the front of me, the kids were mesmerized. For those who wanted to touch them, the teacher would have them form a line, and each one could pet and/or hold them, with me supporting their hands of course. The beardies, and my huge six foot iguana were always the hits of the show. I also made a scrapbook that showed the animals and their enclosures so everyone could see what it took to take the proper care of each one and had that passed around as well. So, along with the pics and care sheets, I was trying to get the word around to keep pets from being bought on a whim and given substandard care.
If your subject is enclosures, you could show each individual component and give detailed instructions on each one, spectrum graphs of the full spectrum lights, measurements of the distance the light penetrates, temperature gradients etc. If you wanted, go into the things that can dress up a cage and how to inexpensively get/make them, like getting cheap slate slabs at local garden stores, securing them with aquarium safe adhesive and building caves and basking areas, arranging greenery for them to drink from etc. You could just go as detailed as you had time for. I'm sure whatever you come up with will be a huge hit. How could they not be with the most wonderful, amazing lizard pet anyone could have for assistance! Best of luck to you and Phineas with your presentation, I hope my ramblings were of some use. Feel free to pm me if I can be of any other help.
Dawn
