Archive for April 2011

Apr
29

Introducing…Alexandra Gomez!

Posted by in Education Office

Last week you met Megan, one of our Call Center Agents. Now it is time to meet her co-worker!

Name: Alexandra A. Gomez

Department and Title: Education; Call Center Agent

Job Description: I process school field trip requests, academic reservations, in-house ticket requests, and tours.

Hometown: Houston, TX

Favorite animal and why? I do not have a favorite animal. I like exotic animals especially newborns.

Favorite class to teach at HZI: In my position I do not teach however I do enjoy assisting with Camp Zoofari!

How long have you worked at the Houston Zoo? 1 year and 10 months!

Describe your education and experience prior to working at the Houston Zoo: Prior to working at the Houston Zoo, Inc. I was in tele-marketing. I am currently enrolled in college.

What do you enjoy most about working in the EduTeer Department? I enjoy having outgoing co-workers that are dependable and enjoy what they do.

What animals do you have at home? I do not have any pets at this time. I have a seven month old daughter who will be getting an aquarium soon!

Tell us a fun fact about yourself: I love to scrapbook!

Check back next week as we introduce the rest of our interpretation staff and our 6 education specialists!

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Apr
22

Introducing… Megan Easely!

Posted by in Education Office

The newest additions to our EduTeer Team are the wonderful ladies who staff our Call Center.  They handle calls and program booking, and we’ll meet the first of them today!

Name: Megan Easely

Department and Title: Education Department; Group Reservationist

Job Description: I coordinate group field trips and Education programs.

Hometown: Houston, Texas

Favorite animal and why? Birds, because they are so interesting! Mice, because they are so cute!

Favorite class to teach at HZI: I am not able to teach classes in my position but I have an interest in Taxonomy and Adaptations.

How long have you worked at the Houston Zoo? 8 months

Describe your education and experience prior to working at the Houston Zoo: Bachelor of Arts. Experience in Non-profit work, Informal Education training, and studies in History and Anthropology.

What do you enjoy most about working in the EduTeer Department? Great Staff! Quality of Service!

What animals do you have at home? None at the moment :(

Tell us a fun fact about yourself: I LOVE the outdoors! … but I have bad allergies.

Join us next week to meet our next EduTeer staff person!

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Apr
16

Introducing…Sharon Reyes!

Posted by in Education Office

Coordinating 6 Education Specialists requires a team of 2 supervisors. You just met Anita Frey who coordinates all of our academic programs, now it is time to meet the public programs side of things.

Name: Sharon Reyes

Department and Title: Education Department; Public Programs Supervisor

Sharon holding our Kenyan sand boa

Job Description: I provide supervision to all of our public programs and the specialists that run them. This includes early childhood, adult and family, scout and the overnight programs.

Hometown: Born in Queens, NY but I consider Houston my hometown.

Favorite animal and why? That changes on a weekly basis. I guess it would be Kiva (male Masai giraffe). He was my first animal experience when I started working at HZI. I was able to go behind the scenes and feed him and that was very cool!

Favorite class to teach at HZI: I haven’t taught any classes so far, but am looking forward to doing this in the near future.

How long have you worked at the Houston Zoo? 11 years at HZI and 2.5 years in the Education Department.

Describe your education and experience prior to working at the Houston Zoo: Before coming to the Education Department I worked in the Membership Department. Prior to coming to the Zoo I worked for the YMCA for 14 years as an Office Manager.

What do you enjoy most about working in the EduTeer Department? The people. Everyone really loves what they do and it really is like family. Everyone helps and looks out for each other.

What animals do you have at home? Charlie my border collie, and three cats Precious, Cali and Tigger.

Tell us a fun fact about yourself: I like to make specialty cakes.

Sharon's "Mad Hatter" Cake!

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Apr
08

Introducing… Anita Frey!

Posted by in Education Office

From Volunteer Staff to Bennett, our profiles of the Education supervisors continue with Anita…

Anita, feeding the giraffes at the new feeding platform in African Forest!

Name:  Anita Barron Frey

Department and Title:  Education; Academic Programs Supervisor

Job Description:  I do A LOT! From managing 6 amazing Education Specialists to promoting our programs, I dabble in lots of places here in the Education Department.

Hometown:  Dallas, Texas

Favorite animal and why?  Habor Seal, Phoca vitulina, one in particular, Porter, who was the coolest, smartest, best seal ever! Here at the Houston Zoo,the giraffe. This graceful animal always seems so peaceful. And I think it has awesome adaptations!

Favorite class to teach at HZI:  So far I really enjoy doing Story Safari on-grounds. It is so silly and fun. I love getting kids involved in the stories, which in turn will hopefully encourage an appreciation for animals.

How long have you worked at the Houston Zoo? 8 months… whew! 

In one of her previous positions, Anita got the chance to paint with a Rockhopper Penguin!

Describe your education and experience prior to working at the Houston Zoo:  Wow… where to start? I began volunteering at the Dallas Zoo when I was 11 and continued there through high school. I later interned at Disney’s Animal Kingdom then graduated from Texas A&M University (WHOOP!) with a B.S. in Wildlife and Fisheries Science specializing in Conservation and Biodiversity. I quickly got a job working with/ training seals, sea lions and penguins. After 4 years working with animals, I traded my whistle in for a dry erase marker. I taught high school Biology for two years. Now I am very lucky to have an awesome job where I get to work in the eductaion department at the Houston Zoo. The perfect mesh of all my experiences!

What do you enjoy most about working in the EduTeer Department?  I love the variety of programs and people. It’s definitely a new Zoo everyday!

What animals do you have at home?  Husband, toddler, a lovable pit-mix- Zoe and a loud beagle- Scout.

Tell us a fun fact about yourself: I played women’s rugby in college and received the most improved player of the year award freshman year thereby earning me the nickname, “The Wall”.

Check back next week for another profile from one of our amazing staff!

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Apr
05

Chancellor Elementary Students Go Above and Beyond

Posted by in Education Office,Zoomobile

Students playing our Survival Gear dress up game at the start of class

Throughout my two years of working in the Education Department at the Houston Zoo I have visited many schools through our ZooMobile program, and have met a lot of great students and teachers who really care for and love animals. However there is one school that really took their passion for animals further than expected!

Chancellor Elementary School had one 5th grade class that really went above and beyond for the Houston Zoo. Mrs. Dolan’s class of students raised over $1,200 for the Zoo. They adopted 5 animals including the meerkats, red panda, elephants and more. They decided to write Brad Booker of Mix 96.5 (a big Zoo supporter) to let him know that they too support the Zoo! Brad contacted us and we went and surprised the students with a ZooMobile (an outreach program where we conduct classes and festivals using biofacts and live animals).

The students touching a live American alligator

The students had no idea that we were coming! It was a lot of fun running in and surprising the students. Along with me were Brad Booker and Maria Todd from Mix 96.5 and Christine Warren from the Zoo’s marketing team. In the class, the kids learned about survival gear that animals have to help them survive in the wild. I brought along some really cool animal bio-facts for the kids to touch and even some real live animals! The students had the opportunity to touch an American Alligator and a Hedgehog.

Then a really special guest came out to meet the class….a North American

Ernie-our North American porcupine

Porcupine! The students loved the ZooMobile and they knew so much great information about animals it made teaching the class a lot of fun! This was an amazing group of kids who came together for something they all believed in!

 

Written by Amy Barnhill; Education Programs Specialist

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Apr
01

Introducing…Bennett Dones!

Posted by in Education Office,Fun on grounds

Now that we have concluded the introductions of our Volunteer Department employees, we are going to head back over to Education. Within our Education Department is our Interpretation Department. These are the people that do all of our free programming on Zoo grounds (Story Safari, Zooper Challenge and Zoo Adventures).

Name: Bennett Dones

Bennett conducting Story Safari; a free on-grounds program in the Children's Zoo

Department and Title: Education; Interpretive Programs Supervisor

Job Description: I do on-grounds interpretation. Through stories, games, songs, and other silly experiences I teach kids about animals.

Hometown: Houston, TX

Favorite animal and why? Any baby animal, because they’re little and cute.

Favorite class to teach at HZI: Anything dealing with children.

 
 

Bennett posing for one of our Christmas card pictures...he's our comic relief!

How long have you worked at the Houston Zoo? 14 years

Describe your education and experience prior to working at the Houston Zoo: Before the Education Department, I worked in Reptiles; I worked in the Commissary before that.

What do you enjoy most about working in the EduTeer Department? All the potlucks, and Waffle Fridays.

What animals do you have at home? I don’t have any pets at home.

Tell us a fun fact about yourself: In honor of the opening of African Forest, I taught several of my coworkers an authentic African dance.

Check back next Friday as we meet more of the Education Department!

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