Parsons High School students participating in dual credit Comp I had a unique opportunity this week to tie a class assignment to a real-life experience.
Comp I students are reading “Life of Pi.” Part I of the story talks about a family that owns a zoo and how they are moving the zoo to Canada.
“In Part I it gets into the controversies of zoos, and how some people are like, ‘Zoos are horrible for animals. There’s abuse, neglect. They are underfunded. Their habitats are restrictive,” Comp I teacher Sally Clay said.
However, the dad in the story presents an alternate. He talks about how zoos can be wonderful, that animals are creatures of habit anyway, putting them on a routine and schedule with abundant food and water is a positive for them. In addition, there are breeding programs for certain animals, veterinary care, and rehabilitation. They also provide educational opportunities for humans. If a zoo is done right, they can benefit animals.
Clay was online and happened to see an article where a McCord’s box turtle was born in captivity at the Sedgwick County Zoo. They are extinct in the wild.
“This successful hatching is not only a first for our Zoo, but an important milestone for conservation as this species is extinct in the wild,” zoo staff said in a Facebook post, speaking to the arrival of the little reptile hatchling.
“I was like, ‘That is so cool. This is exactly what we’re talking about, that zoos can benefit animals and can save them from extinction, and a lot of times animals are extinct because of us,” Clay said. “These turtles were extinct, but they hatched one. Maybe eventually we can re-introduce them back into the wild and the population can grow.”
Clay checked out the zoo’s website to see if they had any type of educational program for students, and she found they have age-appropriate programs for kindergarten through seniors. The one for 12th graders had to do with the veterinary care of animals, which Clay felt was perfect.
“I got ahold of the lady at the zoo and asked about their educational program and she sent me some information. We picked the day and we got a reduced entry fee. It’s only $3.25 a kid. I applied for a mini grant to pay for it, but the mini grant due date isn’t until after our trip. I got the trip approved.
“It’s a great opportunity for kids to apply these things from the book that we are reading to what’s really going on in a zoo here in Kansas,” Clay said.
There are 30 students in the class. Twenty-two were attending the trip Wednesday. Some couldn’t swing the schedule because of conflicting schedules for activities.
Clay said she was also excited for students to visit the animals talked about in the book, like a hyena, orangutang, zebra, Bengal tiger, elephants, Asiatic black bear, warthog, leopard, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, giraffes and more.
“I liked our trip to the zoo because we got to see all the animals that we have read about this semester in the book Life of Pi,” Kayleigh Campmier said, after returning from the field trip. “It was educational to see the animals and learn how the zoo takes care of them all.”
"The zoo was an enjoyable and educational experience. We learned about all the precautions and preventative measures their facility takes to keep their animals safe. I also liked how the animals were all viewed based on the parts of the earth they are from with different trails. One of my favorite parts was the big cat trek where we could view the leopard from up high or down low in its habitat," Braylee Cramer added.
Throughout the year, Clay’s students write four long papers. Right now, they are writing cause and effect papers and some are actually writing about zoos, so it applies not only to the book they are reading, but the papers they are writing. Then they have a multimodal project that they have to do, instead of a final. They could actually do a multimodal project on zoos, Clay said, covering research on breeding programs, or controversial zoos, like in The Tiger King (documentary).
“I found the trip very informative and interesting,” Adian Marshall said, of visiting the Sedgewick County Zoo. “In our book we learned that zoos are incredible for animals and can help them in so many ways. This trip really let us understand how much the zoos help animals and create a safe home for them. Now we can really understand the main character’s point of view on zoos and also create our own perspective.”