Cats, stomachs, stress and vomiting

Why do cats vomit hairballs and how can we prevent them?

Created by L. Loughlin, S Copeland, and E Heinrichs; members of the University of Minnesota veterinary class of 2027

Instructional guide

The story and teaching activities are focused on a cat named Tabitha who almost misses out on Christmas festivities due to a hairball.

Vomiting is common on cats and kids. This lesson helps students understand one of the reasons behind vomiting and may help to remove the stigma around vomiting. It introduces the benefits of good diets, self-calming actions  as well as intestinal anatomy. It and could be expanded into topics such as anxiety,  motion sickness, GI bugs that cause vomiting,  nutrition, inappropriate diets, different diet types (carnivore, omnivore),  or others.  It could also be connected to other lessons in the unit, including  owl pellet regurgitation.

Intended grade level

This lesson is intended to be taught to students in grades K-2, or students ages 5-8. No prior knowledge is required.

Connection to Minnesota State Standards (life science)

3.1.1 Students will be able to develop, revise, and use models to represent the students’ understanding of phenomena or systems as they develop questions, predictions and/or explanations, and communicate ideas to others.

0L.3.1.1.1 Develop a simple model to represent the relationship between the needs of different plants and animals (including humans) and the places they live. (P: 2, CC: 4, CI: LS2)

Student learning objectives

• Students will be able to describe the upper GI tract and common causes of nausea and vomiting. (Such as ingestion of non-digestible items.)
• Students will be able to describe why cats vomit hairballs
• Students will be able to sort objects into edible and inedible categories

Lesson Format

• The lesson is formatted as a narrative  that can be read by the students, read by instructor, or followed as a narrator reads the story. The story includes interactive elements for students to answer or discuss.  Following the story, students complete additional learning activities that highlight digestibility and appropriate diets by species.
• This lesson can be used as an individual lesson or as a part of a group discussion.
• The lesson should take less than an hour. It requires access to the ebook page online.

Assessment

• Students will answer questions during the story and can complete the extra activities to demonstrate understanding.

Materials

• Computer access + headphones

Estimated duration

• 40-50 minutes

Outline

Student learning page

• Storyline
• Extra activity about digestibility
• Extra activity about diets by species

Common misconceptions and challenge points

• Students may struggle to pay attention to the story rather than focus on the vomiting aspect. It may help to remind learners that everyone vomits sometimes and it can be good to clear bad stuff out of our bodies.
• This is connected to the Christian holiday Christmas but is focused on Santa rather than any religious figures