Patricia Patrick

Conservation and education: prominent themes in zoo mission statements

In this study, the authors examine the mission statements of 136 zoos in the United States that the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) has accredited, and report on the predominant themes of education and conservation in the statements. To explore the relation between these two themes, the authors present a literature review of the roles and purposes of zoos and discuss how the literature compares with the roles and purposes of zoos as found in the zoo mission statements. They conclude that with more than 134 million visitors a year, zoos are in a unique position to provide environmental education and conservation education to large numbers of people.

Middle-Level Preservice Mathematics Teachers' Mental Representations of Classroom Floor Plans.

This study reports the results of an innovative assignment in which preservice teachers’ mental representations were examined through drawing floor plans of an “ideal middle-level mathematics classroom.” The 41 middle-level mathematics preservice teachers created two floor plans, one at the beginning of the semester and the other for the course final. An essay was also submitted describing how the final floor plan addressed the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics principle of Teaching. Participants designed and described floor plans that encouraged the use of inquiry and hands-on activities and technology as instructional strategies, focused on student learning styles and individual needs, established a comfortable, organized and safe learning environment, demonstrated flexibility in grouping strategies, and encouraged communication between peers and with the teacher. The essays also suggest that the preservice teachers’ emerging teacher identity was influenced by professional experiences such as field placements and peer lessons.

Talking About Animals

Chapter 5 is an introduction to the visitors’ knowledge of animals. Because adults and children come to the zoo with ideas, information, and images of animals, zoos need to be aware of this knowledge. Zoos should enhance learning in a way that addresses visitors’ misconceptions about animals by identifying the misconceptions and challenging the perceptions that are not in accordance with science. This is a difficult process if the zoo is not aware of the visitors’ prior knowledge, especially the visitors’ knowledge of animals. Visitors’ prior knowledge may be identified within six topics: (1) understanding of the term animal, (2) comprehension of layman’s taxonomy, (3) perceptions of animal behavior and anatomy, (4) curiosity about individual animals, (5) emotional connection to animals, and (6) cultural understandings of animals. An essential part of exposing visitors’ prior knowledge is clarifying the connections between the visitors’ knowledge and their unprompted comments. Listening to visitors’ conversations during the zoo visit and identifying the detail of the conversational topics will provide zoo educators and educational researchers with insight into the prior knowledge of zoo visitors.

Can I Get Directions to My Kidneys Please

This dialog occurred during a classmate interview between two pre-service science teachers talking about the internal anatomy of humans and pigs. Isabel was interviewing Mary about her drawing of the human body to determine which system she drew first and why. Mary clearly knew about the gastrointestinal system [digestive] and many of its organs. She identified the gastrointestinal system as the easiest to draw and identify because she thought “everyone knows about it”.

Elementary and middle level biology topics: a content analysis of Science and Children and Science Scope from 1990 to 2014

Abstract Science and Children and Science Scope are peer-reviewed science practitioner journals that publish articles for science educators who teach children of ages 5–10 years and 10–13 years, respectively. As such, these articles are a reflection of the science concepts that are being communicated to science educators. This comprehensive literature review was completed to determine the extent to which the articles included in these journals from 1990 to 2014 focused on biology topics, incorporated other non-science subjects and science disciplines, and encouraged inquiry-based learning. The results indicate that out of the 2701 total articles, 557 (21%) focused on biology. The biology topic covered most often by both journals was animals. The biology topics covered least often were fungi, photosynthesis, respiration and viruses. The findings are taken into consideration and the educational implications for the journals and educators are discussed.

A History of Animal Collections

Understanding the historical development of zoos is an important aspect in defining their educational future. Therefore, this chapter provides a brief history of the available literature on zoo education, includes a condensed review of the development of zoological institutions from menageries to conservation centers, and defines the change of collections of exotic animals from curiosities to biological conservation and education centers. Zoos moved from indicators of power to scientific establishments for taxonomy, to modern centers of conservation biology. Through the historical literature, we build a foundation for this book by describing the educational evolution of zoos. If zoos had not evolved from places of curiosity, they would not be the centers for biological conservation and education they are today. Additionally, this chapter frames the body of the by considering the future of zoos through the public’s understanding of the zoo’s past. Today’s zoos must consider the zoo’s future and how it links to the public’s understanding of biological concepts, conservation biology, and environmental change. Conservation literacy should be part of good citizenship and should be addressed by practitioners to make the public conservation-literate citizens. Even though the main focus of visitors is the animals on display, the Visitor Voice in this book is described as the content of the dialogues that take place during a zoo visit.

Rationale for the Existence of Zoos

This chapter looks at the stated goals of zoo mission statements and provides examples of how zoos are addressing their missions. Moreover, with the pressure of zoos to become biological conservation mentors, zoos assume five roles as the executor of the relationship between society and nature. First, zoos take on the role of the “model citizen” by conveying a conservation message. They advocate for a sensible, sustainable use of natural resources and promote less wasteful, green-building alternatives. Many zoological institutions are developing organizational plans that include the use of solar, wind, and thermal power in their daily operations. Additionally, they are growing food for the animals, composting, and using recycled materials in their exhibit design. Second, zoos are maintaining a viable and genetically diverse collection. Zoos are managed under the premise that wildlife conservation is of foremost importance. As zoological institutions have become more active in field studies, their research findings are being applied to larger conservation efforts. Moreover, the conservation research that takes place in situ and ex situ is important in saving small fragmented wild populations. Third, zoos directly influence the attitudes and behaviors of the community in relation to the conservation of plants, animals, and habitats. Due to their urban locations within heavily populated cities, zoos have a unique geographic placement within the community. The urban location of zoos provides them with a unique opportunity to influence government policy. Fourth, the zoo is a conservation mentor. Through mentoring efforts, future generations of scientists and citizens will be more aware of the benefits of long-term conservation. As conservation mentors, zoos must lead the public to become citizen conservationist. Fifth, zoos are a place for people to learn basic facts about organisms and their behavior.

Zoo Field Trip Design

This chapter focuses on the rationale behind the zoo field trip and the components of a successful zoo field trip design. There are five stages of a zoo visit that may be used as a framework for organizing a zoo field trip: (1) orientation, (2) concentrated or focused looking, (3) leisure looking, (4) completion, and (5) consolidation. The concentrated or focused looking stage involves the students focusing on learning tasks or activities. This chapter intertwines focused looking stage with the six levels of learning in Bloom’s Taxonomy (Krathwohl, 2002) to define a Zoo Cognition Hierarchy. The Zoo Cognition Hierarchy may be used to analyze the activities teachers and zoos ask students to complete during a zoo visit. If the questions or worksheets do not address the interactions suggested by the Zoo Cognition Hierarchy, higher-order thinking most likely will not occur. Suggestions are given for field trip design, training chaperones, and developing useful field trip activities.

Information Educators Need to Know About Zoo Field Trips (Useful Field Trip Information)

This chapter builds on the previous chapters and explains the acquisition of appropriate knowledge and skills that visitors need in order to maximize the pedagogical and sociocultural benefits of a zoo visit. Moreover, this chapter provides suggestions for designing successful field trips. Zoo visits can be important in developing an understanding of science and the aspect of cognitive development in science literacy such as zoology, ecology, and biological conservation. In the case of formal school visits, the teacher (organizer) organizes a field trip with learning objectives that may be different from the objectives of the students (participants). Teachers, who plan educational zoo visits, usually do so at one of three educational phases, and each phase has its own pedagogical reasons: (1) Teachers plan zoo visits as an introduction to a unit or a new phenomenon hoping that the visit will stimulate students’ interest in a new topic by triggering a reaction in the affective domain. (2) Teachers arrange a zoo visit in the middle of a learning unit to focus on a specific topic or a particular component of the learning scheme. (3) Teachers arrange zoo visits at the end of lesson or unit. This visit is a focused review or is used for consolidating information. Teachers, who spend time carefully preplanning the zoo visit, will be proficient in assessing student learning. In the classroom, teachers would never dream of not assessing student knowledge both formatively and summatively. The essence of helping a student learn and ensuring learning is taking place is to assess the learner before, during, and after the encounter.

Visitors’ Knowledge of Zoos

Even though research in how and what people learn in zoos has become a focus in the past 20 years, future research needs to evaluate the basic biology and conservation knowledge visitors bring to the zoo. If zoo education programs pose a better understanding of what children know and think about the roles and purposes of zoological institutions, then zoo educators will have a construct upon which to scaffold educational material. The public’s knowledge of zoos is addressed in this chapter by (1) identifying the zoo visitor and their reasons for visiting the zoo, (2) determining the visitor’s perceptions of nature, (3) describing the importance of mental models, and (4) defining a model of the divergent and nonscientific knowledge and understandings people have of zoos. Providing a model of the knowledge or understandings people hold regarding zoos is an important tool that may be used when developing educational interactions. Moreover, this chapter defines the components of the informal learning model: (1) definition, (2) image, (3) interaction, and (4) information. The student’s mental model is molded by the informal learning experience.