Volume 3, No. 6. March 28, 2003
Brought
to you by . . .
At the time children
are learning their ABC’s, the Oregon Zoo wants them to learn some TLC for
wildlife and ecosystems. So, the zoo is launching a new education program for
preschoolers and their parents this spring called “Animals from A to Z.”
Beginning April 1 and running through mid-June, the 90-minute sessions will
include a tour, crafts, games and hands-on activity.
The program’s title, however, is not simply a catchy phrase. Each day’s
session will focus on a different animal, starting with Anaconda and going through
Zebra, then filling out the remainder of the schedule with a repeat of the first
nine letters, from Australian Walking Stick to Insects.
For Oregon Zoo’s education programs coordinator, Rex Ettlin, that title
may have proven overly ambitious. “We’re trying to do animals we actually
have here so the kids would see it here,” he said. Oregon Zoo has no jaguars,
for instance, so J proved particularly vexing until Ettlin decided to feature
the Steller’s Jay, a bird which is native to the region and hangs around
the zoo. “We’ll take (the children) up to the marsh where the jays
are commonly found. . .and have a picture on hand as a backup.”
For V, Ettlin decided to feature a vermilion sea star, for X he will feature
the veterinary clinic via “X-rays.” He also had trouble with D, a
letter he had to use twice: he settled on Desert Tortoise and Dwarf Caiman.
For U he listed “urchin,” but before his program was released to the
public somebody had placed the “sea” in front of “urchin,”
appropriately differentiating the echinoderms in the zoo’s collection from
the class members themselves.
Ettlin skipped Q altogether. “I wimped out,” he said, but later wished
he had used “qiviut,” which is the undercoat of a musk ox. “I
could have gone to scientific names, but the kids wouldn’t have known those,”
he said. Wouldn’t qiviut been even more of stretch for children? “Good
point.”
Each class can hold up to 20 people, with no more than five children per one
adult. Only a few weeks into registration, a few classes have already sold out.
“I'm astounded at how much of an influence a particular animal has on registration,”
Ettlin said. “The elephant class completely sold out instantly. The rhinoceros
class sold out.” On the other hand, three animals have inspired no registrants
whatsoever: the Inca tern, the vermilion sea star and those jays.
THE LOOP is written and produced by Eric Minton, Minton Enterprises, LLC. To see more examples of Eric Minton's work and Minton Enterprises services, visit www.ericminton.com.
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