Students Learn Real Life Lessons at Zoo School
asheboro high school, asheboro zoo school, education, heather sojas, life lessons, nc zoo, robbie anderson, the asheboro city schools,
Robbie Anderson, a sophomore at Asheboro High School, may have done his research project on the ostrich, but he certainly isn’t sticking his head in the sand when it comes to educational opportunities.
Anderson is one of 93 young scholars who spend much of their academic day on the grounds of the North Carolina Zoo.
“When I first heard of it, I didn’t really know much about it. It was interesting to hear it was science-based, because that’s what I love,” Anderson recalls. “After the first week, I knew this would be something I would really like and something that fits my personality.” Anderson describes himself as a “hands-on” learner, and that’s what the Asheboro Zoo School is all about. “School, I believe, is a time for learning, and whichever way you’re going to learn best is what’s most important,” he says.
The Asheboro City Schools’ Zoo School, only the fourth of its kind in the country, opened on Aug. 27, 2007. Its student body is made up of 10th- through 12th-graders interested in taking a walk on the wild side. To accommodate the innovative program, the school system erected a freestanding facility with four classrooms, a general meeting room, offices and lab space on property donated by the zoo. Four teachers handle the instruction in science, social studies, English and math, and all have developed curricula – with the help of education professionals at the zoo – that integrate science principles and zoo operations.
“There are a multitude of careers represented there,” says Carla Freemyer, public information officer for Asheboro City Schools. “We like to refer to it as having a 1,500-acre laboratory. Students do spend a lot of time out in the park for experiments. The teaching is different – not as much lecture as it is project-based, working in teams. Even English is taught with a bit of a science slant.”
Asheboro High School operates on a block schedule, with students attending four classes a day in 1.5-hour blocks After half the year, they switch to different classes, thus earning eight credits annually. Zoo School students attend first period at the high school, usually to pick up an elective such as band or a foreign language, and then most ride the bus the six miles to the zoo. They return to the high school campus at the end of the day to participate in after-school activities or head home.
“It’s certainly different to see those kids here during the school year instead of just in the summer,” acknowledges Rod Hackney, the zoo’s public relations manager. “We run into them constantly on the pathways. It’s very exciting to see kids at that age so involved in the natural world and concerned about the environment and our wildlife.”
The first American zoo designed from its inception to present animals in their natural habitat, the North Carolina Zoo offers students as well as visitors a chance to glimpse a variety of animals in their native landscape and many times to see them interacting with animals of other species.
On April 4, 2008, the zoo will unveil its multi-exhibit Watani Grasslands Reserve, with some of the largest and most technologically advanced facilities in the zoo world for the exhibit and care of elephants and rhinoceros. The elephant exhibit will double in size to seven acres and will feature seven elephants, including Samantha, who arrived via truck in October 2007 from Canada’s Valley Zoo in Edmonton. Hackney says a new “immersion” walkway that extends more than 100 feet out into the elephant exhibit will give visitors – and Zoo School students – a closer look at Samantha and her pals. And that’s just the kind of education that Anderson says will bring him back to the Zoo School for his junior year.
Story by Sharon H. Fitzgerald
Photo by Todd Bennett
