Women of Science - February 5

This Saturday, I attended the Women of Science seminar for the Girl scouts of America, giving 3 seminars of about 45 minutes each to groups of girl scouts ranging in ages from 6 to about 12. The program is intended to give the girls examples of the many different roles women can play in the field of science. The Alaska Zoo has participated in this program for several years, and is always happy to be a roll-model for the girls of our city.

Even though I have done this program several times before, I have to admit I was somewhat less than prepared for it this time. I had slept thru my alarm that morning (or, more truthfully, had forgotten to even set the darned thing) and ended up with only 5 minutes in which to get dressed and warm up the car (it being 6 below that night, the car needed a good 15 minutes of warming up - which it unfortunately did not get). Needless to say, the whole rest of my day was rather frazzled, because you just never get your balance back after a start like that.

I did make it to the Ed Building in time to meet up with Amber Mount, the education director's assistant. She and I loaded up my car with all the stuff we were bringing with us, a live snake included in the load, and headed on down to U.A.A. to sign in and get set up.

Amber took Yaz, the ball python, in to the warmth of the room while I made several trips hauling all our other stuff in. It wouldn't have been that bad, except that a mother moose and her yearling calf had taken up residence right at the front door of the building, which made me have to take the long way around just to get to my car and back. By the time I got everything brought in I was thoroughly frozen and dehydrated, and didn't have time to warm up before our first group arrived. So, once again, I was a bit frazzled and off center.

Imagine my surprise when Amber started off the seminar by introducing me and saying that I was going to talk to them for the first half of our program! I hadn't had anything prepared, and had absolutely no idea what to say. Not to mention the fact that my vocal chords were still frozen from traipsing thru the wilderness hauling heavy boxes up to the classroom.

But, I somehow managed to fill up the time with stories of how I came to be a volunteer at the zoo: about 5 years ago, after an injury to my lower back, my doctor told me the best thing I could do was walk. So, I thought to myself, "What's the best place in the world to walk, but the zoo?" and got myself a season pass. After going to the zoo every day for a few months, the workers there finally told me I should just work for the zoo, since I'm there every day anyway. So I signed up, and here I am!

I told the girls about some of the things I do as a volunteer: I give classes, like this one. I give tours to special groups at the zoo. I even get to take care of the orphans that come in, which requires a lot of man-hours for all the formula mixing, bottle feeding, and cleaning up that is needed for the babies.

Next, I told them about my day-job, and what it means to work for an architect. I explained about the new buildings being designed for the zoo, and told them all that they should keep watch on our progress; within at least a year, there should be a noticeable difference in the zoo!

I was then finally able to turn it over to Amber, who told them all about how she came to be working at the zoo. She started out in the High School Mentorship program: if your grades are up to snuff, there is a program where you can spend several hours a day at a job site, learning the skills required to be whatever it is you want to be when you grow up, and even get credit for it! Amber mentored in the education department with Katie Larson for a year. After she graduated, she interned at the zoo as a zookeeper with Shannon Jenson, which gave her enough experience to intern in Hawaii, during her college years, at several wildlife preservation companies (she got to work with sea turtles! I'm so jealous). Now that she’s back in Alaska, she hired on at the Alaska Zoo as the education director’s assistant, and is happily advancing her life-goal of educating people about animal preservation.

The next portion of our seminar consisted of Amber telling the girls all about the Ridley’s Sea Turtle, which is one of the turtles she worked with in Hawaii. The zoo has a confiscated corpse (I know of no nicer way to put it; the animal has been killed and shellacked into some kind of demented table piece) of a young Ridley’s Sea Turtle that she could show the girls while she talked. She told them about the dangers they face, both as young hatchlings trying to make it from the nesting site to the ocean (not only are there dangers from sea birds and rats eating them, but also from human encroachment) and as adults out in the open sea (from sharks eating them to garbage dumped into the waters). Only about 1 in 5,000 hatchlings will survive to breeding age. That is a very low percentage, so the turtle really needs our help to survive.

Finally, the girls were able to come up and take a look at our critter tables. We split each class into two, with one half going to the critter table that I manned, while the other half went over to Amber’s side and got to meet the snake. My table was full of pictures and critter pieces, and we all got to talk about animals native to Alaska. The girls, as always, each had stories to tell of their encounters with wildlife, and had fun sharing them with everybody.

I have to say Yaz stole the show, however. A live snake is NOT something you see every day up here, and all the girls enjoyed meeting him. Well, all but one, that is. That one little girl was so afraid that she ended up bawling at the table. She didn’t realize that she didn’t HAVE to be there. She calmed down once they sent her over to my side of the room, thankfully. I assured her that it was ok to be afraid of snakes – many people are, but that this particular one was really just a the teddy bear.

In fact, Yaz did exceptionally well that day. We had 3 classes within 4 hours, each one with about 10 – 25 girls attending. And all of those girls (minus the one) spent a good 15 minutes petting him on his back. Thru it all, Yaz was so calm and relaxed! He did very well.

Finally it was time to pack up and head on home. I hadn’t eaten yet, and was eager to get home to a bowl of homemade soup. But, I think both Amber and I had a good time, and I hope the girls did, too.