Content
Zoo teaching role suits USC student
Encouraging children to care about the environment must involve giving them hands-on experiences, according to University of the Sunshine Coast teaching student Emma Bell.
And for Emma, that means getting the children to put their hands on insects, frogs, lizards, possums, koalas and other animals.
Emma, 24, has just completed a six-week work placement at Taronga Zoo in Sydney as part of her Graduate Diploma in Education program at USC.
She organised the work placement through her connections with UnderWater World at Mooloolaba where she has worked part-time for the past three years as an education officer.
“I’m really passionate about giving kids real experiences,” she said. “It’s important to get them to interact in a real situation, rather than only reading about things in a textbook.
“It’s rewarding to see the looks on their faces when they touch a possum or a frog and see how strange it feels.”
The former Wavell State High School captain had started an undergraduate degree in teaching when she first left school, but soon changed to a Bachelor of Science and Arts at the University of Queensland.
“When I got a taste of a science prac at a school, I thought ‘this is not the way I want to teach children about how amazing the environment can be’.
“Because I’ve worked at UnderWater World and love the work I do there, that’s the reason I wanted to work at the zoo. My main interest is to do environmental education. That’s definitely the way I want to go.”
Emma said her work placement at Taronga Zoo had provided her with some valuable experiences.
“The zoo has three areas where lessons are taught – at its education centre, at the Wild Asia classroom (opposite the Asian elephant enclosure) and at Backyard to Bush,” she said.
“At the education centre, the lessons are generally for secondary students … things like classifications and adaptations and endangered species. Secondary lessons are also taught at the Wild Asia classroom.
“Backyard to Bush is very different and is usually for younger children from Kindergarten to Year 2. We had to dress up as characters down there like pixies and veterinarians.”
She said this teaching area highlighted animals that people were likely to come across in suburban areas, such as leaf insects, frogs, lizards, possums and koalas.
“The themes of lessons include animal senses, life cycles of animals which we call ‘eggs to legs’, and we encourage them to be backyard buddies and look after the animals in their backyards.
“Because what we were teaching is so linked into the curriculum, it really makes a difference. To help kids from pre-school and up about the positive things they can do to look after the environment, it’s really good.”