At the monthly volunteer meeting the night before, I sorta mentioned the fact that for the past year or two we've had almost no help what-so-ever at the girl scouts programs. Several people came up to me afterwards to apologize, saying that they would have loved to help but hadn't known help was needed. So, this Friday night we had more help than ever! We had 3 volunteers; Myself, Megan, and Mai (she's visiting us from Japan for a month, but is helping out while she's here), our high-school intern (who's name, I’m sorry to say, I’ve forgotten) and Amber, the education director's assistant. All 5 of us, just to handle the 18 little girls and 12 adults who showed up that night. I admit, the girls were rather rambunctious, and the adults were only slightly better than usual at helping out - but still, that's a lot of people to cram into our tiny little temporary education building! We all had a good time, all the same.
One of the troupes that attended the program this time was a repeat from just a few weeks ago. I recognized the troublemaker right away, just as soon as she walked in the door! I also recognized my ex-husband's little girl, Kaitlen. This time, her mother brought her to the zoo, but just dropped her off so I didn't have to worry about any awkwardness from that corner of the room.
The repeat troupe was only a portion of the girls attending, however. The other troupes that attended had trouble finding the building, so were trickling in by ones and twos for almost an hour after the program started. The Girl Scouts Council is supposed to send the troupes maps showing how to get where they need to be, as well as instructions on what they need to bring with them. Seems they have been neglecting to do this, however. Thankfully, they all brought treats for the girls, so at least we didn't have to have some of the girls eating treats while the rest of them just sat and watched, as has happened in the past.
We started off the show by introducing ourselves, giving a brief description of what we do at the zoo. Amber then asked each of the girls to state their names and to tell us what their favorite animal was. There were a lot of cats, dogs, horses, and the like, with a few dolphins, giraffes, and moose thrown in for good measure. One lady, also from Japan, said that she didn’t know what her favorite animal was yet. I guess there’s just too many to choose from.
Amber then spoke about Animal Misconceptions. She showed the girls pictures, like a spider, a bat, a wolf, a snake - that sort of thing, and asked them what they thought of each one. A few of the girls squealed in mock-fright at the spiders and snakes, but that was obviously pretend. Most of them just identified what the picture was and said either, "Ooo!" or, "Ug!" depending. Amber told them that each animal has good qualities as well as bad reputations, and that you really should get to know the animal (or person) before judging them by appearance alone.
She also spoke about reptiles in particular, showing them several snake skins (provided by Yaz, our in-resident Ball Python, who was having a bad day so did NOT come out to play with the girls) and empty turtle shells (not from our in-resident turtles, who are still using their shells). She took Mercy, one of our Eastern Box Turtles, out and fed her some mealworms for the girls to watch. Mercy will eat mealworms till she bursts; she just loves them! She started at one end of the row of tables, and about every foot from beginning to end she got another worm – so she just worked her way down the table eating one after another.
The Japanese lady who didn’t have a favorite animal yet came over and got my attention in the middle of all this, and said, "I think I just found out what my favorite animal is!" So I said, "Great! It's the mealworm, right?" That rather startled the poor lady (I really shouldn't tease the foreign people) but then she assured me it was the turtle she was talking about. She had all kinds of questions about turtles, so we talked quietly for a while, before it was my turn to speak to the whole group.
Since the girls were so "attentive and well behaved" (not) I shortened my creature feature bit considerably from what I’d planned on. But I still had fun with it, and I think the girls did, too. Zieh, Heather's sister (Heather being my brother's girlfriend, for those of you who don't know her), had loaned me a stuffed SpongeBob Squarepants toy, and I used him to begin my talk about Sponges. I held him up and asked the girls who it was. "SpongeBob!" they all yelled. "Is he real?" I asked. "No!" they replied. "Ah, but he's based on something real. A sponge, from the ocean." I replied. I just about fell over laughing when one little girl piped up and said, "I thought he was made of cheese?"
We then talked about sponges for a while, and I got to show them some really cool pictures taken by my friend Cyrinda, who is a professional diver and photographer, who travels the world over taking spectacular pictures everywhere she goes. Cyrinda also loaned me an actual sponge, so the girls got to see a "live" dead one as well as just photo's. Megan, one of the other volunteers who was working the program with us that night, had also brought in an actual sponge; this one being a bath sponge, so the girls could see that there really isn't that much different between a real sponge and a man-made sponge.
Just before my Creature Feature portion of the program, Amber had conducted a science project with the girls. She had taken a pair of gloves, one with the fingers tied off and one with the fingers left loose, and filled them with water. She then asked the girls which one they thought would loose heat the fastest when placed outside for 15 minutes, and talked about heat conservation in animals, such as the giraffe as compared to the musk ox. The gloves got placed outside on the steps while I gave my little talk about sponges.
Once I was finished, the gloves were retrieved and the temperatures were taken. The glove with fingers had a temperature of 54 degrees, and the one without fingers had a temperature of 56 degrees. Since the gloves had each started out at the same temperature of 71 degrees, the girls got a first-hand look at how surface area effects heat-loss. But, then it was time for the nocturnal tour, so I'm sure all thought of heat-loss and surface areas just went "Whoosh!" right out of their heads.
Our nocturnal tour is always the best feature of the program, and no matter how cold it is they always want to go out there. We always give them the option to stay indoors and do crafts if it is below zero, but oddly enough no troupe has ever taken us up on that offer! The temperature was pretty cold that night, but we bundled everybody up and headed on out the door anyway. We really didn't stay out very long, but got to visit with a couple of the animals before the lure of hot coco pulled us back into the building. Unfortunately, we had no coco to offer! We'd run out... Oh well, the girls had their snacks and juice boxes, so were happy enough.
The first craft project of the night involved crayons and paper. Amber talked to the girls about different ways they can help protect the environment and asked them to draw pictures of either something they should NOT do or something they SHOULD do, depending on their moods. There was only about 15 minutes worth of time for them to create their masterpieces (and boy, some of them were certainly doing just that!) before the next item on the agenda, so we told them they could finish them up at home.
Once we got all the crayons cleared off the tables, we handed out the Animal Bingo boards. This is just like regular bingo, except with pictures of animals rather than numbers on the boards. We have apparently misplaced the chips used to mark places on the boards, so Amber passed out macaroni pieces instead. She then would describe an animal till somebody called out what they thought it was. Once the animal was named properly, then everybody could see if it showed up on their boards. Sometimes, the animal in question would show up more than once, so they had to look very carefully to make sure they got as many pieces of macaroni on their boards as they could.
The winner of the game got a surprise: I gave the lucky young girl the SpongeBob Squarepants toy I had brought for my creature feature program! She was VERY excited about winning him. The other girls were very envious, to say the least. By that time, however, it was time to send them on out the door and out to their parents, so we said goodbye and locked the door behind them.
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