Amy Barnhill on a Zoomobile with an American Alligator

In the last blog I was teaching an Adventure Class. Today I am going on a Zoomobile! What is a Zoomobile you might ask? Well, it is a class (similar to an Adventure Class) but instead of the participants coming to the Zoo, the Zoo comes to them! We bring biofacts and live animals to the interactive learning experience. We have done Zoomobiles for all different ages, from Pre-K groups to seniors. Everybody loves to learn about animals, no matter what the age!

Sometimes the table isn't big enough for all the Biofacts!

Since I am traveling to a school for the class, I need to pack ahead of time. I strategically place my biofacts in a plastic bin trying to fit everything I need in a small space. Once I ‘m packed it’s time to pick up the animals from the Children’s Zoo. I load up the animals in the Zoomobile and head out. After arriving at the school I am escorted to my classroom where I set up my table. The kids come in and it’s show time!

Sometimes a Zoomobile can take you away from the Zoo for hours. I have had plenty where I come back, return the animals to the Children’s Zoo, walk back to the Brown Education Center, unpack my biofacts, and it is time to go home!  It is always an adventure whether you are teaching at the Zoo or traveling to a school.

Stayed tuned next week to see what else an Education Specialist does other than teach classes…

Amy working with our North American porcupine, Ernie

Our next Education Specialist to meet is one of the more colorful characters in our department.  We’ve all enjoyed getting to know her, and I hope you do, too!

Name: Amy Barnhill

Department and Title: Education Department; Education Program Specialist

Job Description: I teach and write all the education programs that the Houston Zoo has to offer. I also take care of the invertebrates and sand boa here in the education department.

Hometown: Salina, KS

Favorite animal and why? My favorite animal is the octopus! I love all types of octopi but my favorites include the Giant Pacific, blue ringed, and dumbo octopus. I love these animals because they are unique in behavior and physical appearance. And there in nothing else like them in the world.

Favorite class to teach at HZI: I love to teach all of the classes, but my favorite would be the ZooMobiles. I love the chance to leave zoo grounds and bring the zoo to a group of children or people that may not otherwise be able to make it out to the zoo. We always take live animals with us and bio-facts and having those things in a child’s classroom gives the students a chance to feel that connection with the animals and the zoo without ever leaving there desk!

How long have you worked at the Houston Zoo? 2 years

Describe your education and experience prior to working at the Houston Zoo:   I attended Friends University for their Zoo Science Program. There I got a lot of keeper experience working as a student keeper in the program at Sedgwick County Zoo. I also did an internship at Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure in the education department where I helped teach and write their education programs. After my internship I started here at the Houston Zoo and have been here ever since. My years in an AZA accredited zoo total 5 years and I have been lucky enough to have worked with a varity of animals.

What do you enjoy most about working in the EduTeer Department?  The thing I enjoy most about working here is that everyday it is something new. I never have the same work day twice. I also enjoy the chance to meet hundreds of kids a year and help them discover their love for nature and the natural world.

What animals do you have at home? I have a terrier mix puppy that is almost 6 months old!

Tell us a fun fact about yourself: I was a baton twirler for 14 years and have even won a national title with the National Baton Twirling Association.

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 5^th 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

Written by Amy Barnhill; Education Programs Specialist

Dought and the Education Department in our usual form

The Education Department was fortunate enough to have Dought Nkomo from the Painted Dog Conservation Project in Zimbabwe visit with us for a week. When we knew he would be spending time with us after working with the Facilities Department it was time to pack his schedule FULL of fun, educational Houston Zoo experiences.

Dought came over to our department from March 18th-March 24th. Over the course of the week he experienced many of our programs. The first day we took him around the Zoo to show him how some of our on-grounds tour programs work (Wild Wheels, Senior Safari, etc.) he even got to go on one of our Wild Wheels programs!

Dought and Elizabeth holding Makobe-a leopard tortoise after Wild Wheels

That same day he received a one-on-one training in Interpretation Skills from our Senior Education Specialist. As we do with anything we celebrate, we decided to have a potluck lunch to welcome Dought on his first day. Unfortunately he was feeling a little under the weather from all of the travel and new food so we kept it simple-corn casserole, mac and cheese, rice-the basics.

Dought then got to visit with our Wild Winks specialists and learn what we do during our overnight programs. Learning about this program was of increased significance since the kids sleep over at the Bush Camp in Zimbabwe for 4 nights.

Our ZooMobile program is one of our most well-known educational programs, and we thought it would be fun for Dought to tag along on one. He went with an Education Specialist to Lonestar College to teach college freshman about adaptations. He also spent some time with Bennett-our Interpretive Programs Supervisor to learn about theatrical programs on Zoo grounds (Story Safari, Zooper Challenge, Zoo Adventures).

Dought and DeAndra on a ZooMobile with a volunteer docent-Bonnie

Finally, we wrapped up his visit with a trip to the Texas City Prairie Preserve, a free field trip that we conduct on land owned by The Nature Conservancy. This program is very similar to the Bush Camp program in that kids study a local ecosystem from the bugs to the water and develop an appreciation for declining flora and fauna in the area. Dought had the chance to sweep for Texas insects, go seining in Moses Lake, learn the Attwater’s Prairie Chicken mating dance and test the quality of water in the brackish habitat. He said he really enjoyed seining and that he usually doesn’t like water because he can’t swim (Zimbabwe is a land-locked country) but he walked along the bank and used a net to catch some fish!

Dought and Bennett conducting a Zooper Challenge in the Children's Zoo

At the end of his stay Dought took home certificates to certify that he completed training in Community Outreach, Interpretation and Curriculum Design and Instruction. PHEW…not bad for a week! We hope Dought enjoyed his visit as much as we enjoyed having him here. It’s not every day you get to learn from such a well-spoken, friendly and knowledgeable conservation hero. It seems as though he learned quite a bit from his visit to Houston, but he may never know how much we learned from him.

To learn more about Painted Dog Conservation visit our conservation website: http://www.houstonzoo.org/painted-dog-conservation/ or visit the PDC website: http://www.painteddog.org/.

If you’ve enjoyed reading about Dought and Xmas you can read more about them on our main Zoo Blog and Conservation Blog: http://www.houstonzooblogs.org/zoo/ or http://houstonzooblogs.org/wildconservation/.

A night tour is fun, unless it is raining or the animals are off exhibit!

One of the key characteristics of everyone in the Education Department is flexibility.  Of course, I don’t mean that we are all gymnasts.  (Although we do have two former cheerleaders and several former dancers on our team.)  I mean that the education staff are each creative enough to make it work when things don’t go quite as planned.  For every program we offer, there is at least one element of unpredicability.  

We have several on grounds programs that involve a tour of animal exhibits.  For Wild Wheels and Senior Safari, this may mean that one of the featured animals for the week is off exhibit or impossible to see.  Our Wild Winks overnights sometimes have a bigger challenge: the morning tour is before the zoo opens, and this means that every exhibit may display a cleaning keeper instead of an animal. 

Another element of programs that can turn into an element of surprise is booking.  Programs like Camp Zoofari and Safari School are individual registrations, making them a bit more predictable, but for groups that reserve programs we may end up with something different than what we expect.  For field trip programs, especially Adventure Classes, the biggest obstacle is usually number of students.  Our two classrooms are limited by fire code to a small group size, and if a school books one program for more than one class, we may end up having to change either the schedule or the location at the last minute.  Size is not the only piece that can be unpredictable; age can be as well.  We tailor our programs and curricula to the age group we expect, and if a Scout group or Wild Winks turns out to be younger or older than requested we may have to get really flexible.  

The variability of weather in Houston can also present its own challenges.  Our field research program at Texas City Prairie Preserve, Camp Zoofari, and Wild Winks are the three programs that require the most flexibility when the weather changes.  I’m not just talking about rain, either; rain we can handle.  Getting a little wet never hurt anybody.  Lightning and thunder, however, can cause some serious damage and force us to restrict our classes to the Education Building. 

ZooMobiles are a special brand of the unknown; unless we have been to a location before, we can’t predict much about the site, the setup, or even the class.  Sometimes what the group requested and what they are expecting are even different.  We’ve had programs where we were expecting to do 4 half-hour presentations and they wanted 2 hour-long programs, trips when we’ve packed to present Habitats and then have to change to Texas at the last minute, and even events where we planned for a festival table and what we ended up doing were back-to-back assembly programs! 

What a festival table should look like, as long as there's actually a table.

While there are big things that we know are unpredictable, sometimes it’s the little things that can be the biggest challenge.  I arrived once at a festival ZooMobile, which is basically a table of biofacts and a few handling animals, to discover that the event had run out of tables!  The Docent volunteer who was with me and I got out a few large biofacts to hold, and took turns handling one animal at a time.  A younger group on a Wild Wink overnight had gotten settled into the classrooms to sleep only to realize that the mounted animal biofacts that are kept in the rooms were too scary, and the whole group had to move into another room. 

The little surprises can’t be predicted, but we can prepare for some of the more common challenges.  We always include multiple animals in our planning for the “touring” programs, so even if one animal is not visible, hopefully others are.  There is spare food available for overnight programs, in case someone with a dietary restriction attends without warning.  And our biggest preparation is simply knowing that things may not go as planned, and a flexibility to make quick changes that is a key part of who we are as educators, and as the Education Department.

The Houston Zoo's very own ZooMobile!

As the month of February ended and Spring Break came near, the Education Department’s schedule filled up very quickly. It’s spring which means lots of school fieldtrips and lots of ZooMobile program requests. As an Education Specialist at the Zoo, in a 5-day week you may do 4 ZooMobiles (each could be about 5 hours long including drive time), 3 Adventure Classes and even Safari School! Phew! It makes me tired just thinking about it, but we do it because we love it, and we know that educating children about the critical nature of our earth, wildlife and natural resources is imperative. Some programs are smoother than others, sometimes things just don’t seem to go your way but you deliver the best program you can because you know the kids deserve it.

On one occasion at the end of March of this year I went on one of the most rewarding ZooMobiles I have ever been on. It was a Tuesday and I remember packing up biofacts with one of our docents, Marcia. We discussed which bird skulls to take, which cat furs and which mammal claws to pack up. It was like any other Zoomobile until we got in the van. Marcia began to tell me how this elementary school came upon having the Zoo out to their school.

She told me that the school we were traveling to is where her daughter is a lead teacher. Well, I thought, this will be great! We will have a teacher that we know to control behavior so we can focus on the teaching…but that wasn’t all. Marcia’s daughter is a lead teacher in a school made up of mostly refugees from around the world. From Ethiopia to Iran and Venezuela, there were students who came from all walks of life with very different backgrounds, and some with very sad pasts. As well as having a school made up of mostly refugees, Marcia told me that most classes were barely learning English. This, I thought, was not out of the ordinary for the Houston area, except that their native languages weren’t necessarily Spanish. Similar to the areas where they were born, their native languages spanned from Portugese to Korean and Chinese. My language skills extend to Spanish, and only short phrases in French and Japanese…at this point I wasn’t sure if the kids would enjoy themselves at all if they couldn’t understand a word we were saying!

 To my surprise, and completely to the contrary of what I had expected, the kids loved the presentations. We improvised in Spanish; we made arm gestures and acted out scenes of birds, mammals and reptiles. We touched furs and skulls and live animals and tried to explain the rest. What didn’t come across in words certainly came out in smiles, movements and sounds. It turns out the ZooMobile can be so much more than an hour long presentation about animals. Animals and an appreciation of wildlife can transcend from any language and any culture, anywhere.

Not only did the kids enjoy themselves, but they earned it. Unable to pay for the ZooMobile presentations on their own, teachers from their school applied for a grant in order to award their hard-working students with a visit from the Zoo. The grant paid off for the kids, and the experience paid off for me. It doesn’t get much better than that!

Written by Martha, Education Programs Specialist

The plush Swine Flu from GIANTmicrobes

I should probably explain.  We currently have a booth in the exhibit hall at the Conference for the Advancement of Science Teaching, also known as CAST.  This is the annual conference for the Science Teachers Association of Texas, and the exhibit hall is always PACKED with booths related to science teaching.  Microscopes, lab kits, text books, replica skulls, you name it, you can find it at CAST.  I even saw a bin full of plush microbes – this year’s new addition is Swine Flu. 

 My job at CAST was not actually to walk around and drool over new science books and fun gadgets, of course, although that is definitely a perk.  The Houston Zoo booth is there for two reasons – to promote our school programs and to spread the word about our upcoming Educator Day.  I do enjoy talking to the teachers that stop by our booth.  It always surprises me how far some schools will travel for a field trip to our zoo, and how many people don’t realize that our ZooMobile program will bring the zoo to them!

If you are a science teacher in the area, hopefully we’ll see you at CAST.  Our booth is in the Informal Science Education area (or, as I overheard one teacher say, the “funner side”) of the Exhibit Hall.  I already took my turn at the table, but I may ask one of my coworkers to pick up a GIANTmicrobe for me tomorrow.  Perhaps bird flu, if they have it…

Today at one of those camps I had a second-grade student ask if I had brought Toby the Red Panda with me.  Of course, if Toby had gone with me to Sugar Land, then none of our zoo visitors would have been able to see him.

While Toby may have stayed at the zoo, three of our handling animals did travel with me.  These are part of a special collection of animals that live behind-the-scenes in our Children’s Zoo.  Most of these handling animals are relatively small (we do have to carry them in their travel containers, after all), but we do have a few oversized animals like our Flemish giant rabbits.  Exactly how big does a rabbit have to be to be considered a “giant”?  Trixie, our female Flemish giant, weighs about 18 pounds.  Now that is a big rabbit!

Trixie our Giant Flemish rabbit

For today’s ZooMobile, I took a chinchilla, a fat-tailed gecko, and a baby alligator.  Maybe they aren’t as cute as Toby (he is the cutest animal in the world, you know), but the kids seemed to like them just the same.  It’s not every day you get to touch an alligator!

Leigh

One of my Thank You drawings

As an education specialist at the Zoo, I teach classes on and offsite.  With the Zoomobile, we bring programs to schools, churches, community centers, festivals, camps, you name it.  I have taught just about every age group you can imagine too.

Yesterday I did an all day Zoomobile program at Regina-Howell Elementary in Beaumont.  I had about 120 second graders throughout the day, and they were just about the best group of kids I’ve ever had.  Great questions, silly stories, and to top it off, they wrote me thank you letters complete with illustrations! 

One of them began her letter with, “So, can I call you Tamz?” Sure, why not?  Other letters described in detail how much they enjoyed seeing the American alligator I brought, or meeting the kingsnake, or sniffing the ‘smelly’ ferret.  Whenever I tell kids that you’ve brought live animals, their eyes light up with excitement.  They write in their thank you’s that they can’t wait for you to come back next year.  And they will remember you the next time.  It’s great to know that you’ve not only made an impact on their life, but you made learning fun too.  So much fun that they feel comfortable enough to call you Tamz.