Zoo Internquest is a seven-week career exploration program for San Diego County high school juniors and seniors. Students have the unique opportunity to meet professionals working for the San Diego Zoo, Safari Park, and Institute for Conservation Research, learn about their jobs, and then blog about their experience online. Follow their adventures here on the Zoo’s website!
How do you get second graders and other students to be interested in conservation? Well, Ms. Maya O’Connor, a Zoo Educator, and the San Diego Zoo’s Education Department have figured out the perfect answer to that question. She and other educators here at the San Diego Zoo have been using Roberta/Robert, an animated and interactive talking zebra, for almost ten years to teach kids all about how they can help with conservation efforts and other intriguing facts about animals and science.
Not only does Ms. O’Connor use Roberta to teach students about conservation, she also utilizes animal ambassadors to “bring the Zoo to the people.” She takes these ambassadors with her during outreach programs where she speaks to different groups of people from assemblies to classrooms. Ms. O’Connor told us about one of her favorite animal ambassadors, Rojelio the parrot, who helped her teach about conservation by showing kids how to pick up trash and place it into a recycling bin.
This week we were lucky enough to meet with and see Ms. O’Connor’s training session with another parrot, Rio. She is currently training him to aid in the clipping of his nails by putting his foot up on the wall of his exhibit to make the trimming less stressful for him. Animals at the Zoo are trained for their own health; for example, so as to prepare for vet visits and keep up their physical appearance. During these training sessions, trainers only use positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement refers to using rewards to encourage a certain behavior that the animal is displaying, like Rio putting his foot up on the wall of his exhibit. The rewards mainly have to do with food, and for Rio he loves sunflower seeds and peanuts! Some animals, however, also enjoy a back scratch like pandas, or even, an armpit scratch like Lucian the lemur.
Animal ambassadors are an easy way to get students excited about learning about conservation, but Ms. O’Connor also plays an integral role in many of the education programs offered by the San Diego Zoo. These programs provide a link between protecting the environment to these kid’s homes. One of the programs, School in the Park, has hands on activities for third to eighth graders, the latter of which gets to create conservation projects on specific species or habitats. For instance, the eighth graders present these projects as if they were on the television show Shark Tank, and get “grants” (zoo money) depending on how effective their idea would be in solving some sort of conservation issue.
In addition to School in the Park, Guardians of the Bay is another weeklong conservation education program offered by the San Diego Zoo. Guardians of the Bay focuses on introducing local middle school students to the San Diego Bay, and the different action steps they can take everyday to protect this unique and fragile ecosystem. More specifically, the students learn all about climate change, biodiversity and, most importantly, how they can make a difference in our community. Ms. O’Connor stressed how absolutely crucial it is that conservation is tied back to our home, that is how more and more people get involved. Whether it be in San Diego, or a community in Kenya focused on the protection of giraffes, the way to make a difference is to educate and engage people about the diversity living in their backyards.
Ms. O’Connor urged the fact that “conservation can be tied into every single subject there is”. An example she used was in math, students can even calculate the angle of an elephant’s ear, and how this information can then help scientists learn more about elephants. While her young students often come up to her and say that they’ve started to turn the water off while brushing their teeth, or made any other changes, Ms. O’Connor often finds that it is the adults who have the hardest time making behavioral changes. Her favorite message to relay about conservation to both students and adults is that they can do something. For people who often become discouraged about the changes that they can make, whether they listen to a broadcast or flip off a light switch, anyone can aid in conservation efforts.
Emma, Conservation Team
Week One, Winter Session 2019
