Published: June 12, 2008 01:54 am            

SCHOOLS: Barker students take virtual field trip to San Diego Zoo

BARKER — Students at Pratt Elementary School learned about animal adaptation from the San Diego Zoo — without leaving their school.

The Barker School District is offering students “virtual field trips,” a service available through the Orleans/Niagara Board of Cooperative Educational Services. Set up like a videoconference, the trip allowed students to visit places and speak with people in different locations without leaving the school. Despite distance, people can communicate with each other in real time, as if they were in the same room, through the use of cameras, microphones and a monitor.

On Wednesday, fourth- and fifth-graders in Barker were able to speak with Katie, a representative of the San Diego Zoo.

“Hi. Do we have everybody there and are we ready to go?” Katie asked the Barker group when she greeted them at the beginning of the meeting.

Her question, and most of her introduction, was interrupted by lots of squawking. That was the greeting of Rahellio, a thick-billed parrot who was brought on screen. The children laughed as the parrot kept squawking, and climbed its way over Katie’s lap. The theme for the field trip was adaptation — physical or behavioral changes animals make to adjust to their environment.

Thick-billed parrots, an endangered species, have feathers that are brightly colored. Katie said the feathers are an adaptation: They keep the parrot warm and help identify adult males. She asked the kids what else the feathers could do.

“Fly,” said one student quietly from the back of the room.

“I heard it,” Katie responded.

After Rahellio, Coco the armadillo made an appearance. The kids were able to see Coco’s hard outer shell up close, as well as the hairs on Coco’s side. Armadillos have very poor vision and hearing, so the hairs are needed much like the whiskers on a cat.

The fourth- and fifth-graders were also able to see polar bears, giraffes and giant pandas in the San Diego Zoo. They were able to see how the animals were physically able to adapt to their environment. For example, the giraffe’s long neck enables it to eat off high branches; or the giant panda’s claws and jaw allow it to eat bamboo. But one animal in particular got the students’ full attention: A snake.

Cries of “cool” and “wow” filled the room in Barker. The snake was Big Tex, the Mexican milk snake, which looks like a venomous coral snake but is harmless. The colors of both snakes consist of red, yellow and black together. But the order is important, and there is a way to remember it.

“Red next to black is a friend of Jack,” Katie said. “Red next to yellow can kill a fellow.”

Tex’s copying of colors is an adaptation called mimicry: Some predators will mistake him for the coral snake and leave him alone.

The school district received a monetary donation in memory of Marie McAdam, which paid for the virtual field trip program. A committee headed by teacher Tricia Wayner was established to work with the McAdam family to determine appropriate uses of the available funds.

Barker students have gone on three trips so far. The first was “In Depth: Autopsy,” a virtual field trip with the Columbus Science Center that took place in May, in which students viewed a live autopsy and participated in live interaction with six other schools. Next was “The Eyes Have It,” a trip with the Adventure Science Center in Nashville, Tenn., where students could see a cow eye dissection. They took a close-up, virtual tour of a real cow eye to discover various aspects of human eye anatomy, showing how the components work together with the brain to allow for sight. The latest was the San Diego Zoo trip, which students seemed to enjoy, with a few saying “how cool” the experience was.

Leann Briggs, who works with Barker’s talent development program, said students fill out interest surveys in the beginning of the year. When one area has a large number of responses, the district tries to develop a group activity in that interest, such as the virtual field trip. She felt the virtual field trip had more impact with the kids because it was at the zoo, as compared to zoo workers coming to the school.

“It’s the same information, but there was a more meaningful connection,” she said. “She (Katie) gave them rhymes — they’ll remember things like this.”

Briggs asked the kids if they would go on another field trip. Hands shot up all over the room.

Contact reporter Joe Olenick

at 439-9222, ext. 6241.

        

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