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Akron Zoo brings assembly to Poland schools
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Teachers and students at McKinley Elementary School filled the gymnasium for an assembly put on by the Akron Zoo.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.McKinley Elementary School Principal Ed Kempers introduced Akron Zoo education specialists Debra Swank and Todd Boerner before the start of the assembly.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Akron Zoo education specialists Todd Boerner (left) and Debra Swank brought out an Amazon parrot at the beginning of the assembly.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Akron Zoo education specialist Debra Swank displayed a ball that had been scratched up and had a hole bitten in it by jaguars that reside at the zoo.
By TIM CLEVELAND
Students at Poland Middle School and McKinley Elementary School were treated to assemblies by education specialists from the Akron Zoo on Dec. 9 and 11, respectively.
The students in both schools read the book “The One and Only Ivan,” about a gorilla that is kept in captivity. While the students in fifth- and sixth-grades at McKinley Elementary got a more fun and silly assembly, the older students in grades seven and eight at Poland Middle School got a more serious lesson in animal trafficking, which is a theme of the book.
“The language arts department teachers got it together,” McKinley Elementary Principal Ed Kempers said of the program’s origin. “They did this last year. They do a book read in grades five through eight. The students read all the same book. In each grade level the teachers did something with the book that was appropriate for each grade level. This was the culminating activity.”
The Akron Zoo’s Carrie Bassett handled the assembly at Poland Middle School, while her colleagues Debra Swank and Todd Boerner put on the show at McKinley Elementary.
“We are doing our Dr. Frankenzoo assembly show, which is sort of a mad scientist theme,” said Swank, who said she and Boerner do more than 500 education programs each year. “We talk about the web of life within our world and how closely everything is related and connected together. As species disappear, you might not feel affect right away but eventually it all trickles down.”
Swank and Boerner brought eight animals to the assembly to help illustrate their message. The animals were a porcupine, ring-necked pheasant, corn snake, kinkajou, hedgehog, big dumeril’s ground boa, great horned owl and an Amazon parrot.
“They’re all a part of our education department at the zoo, so it’s their job,” Swank said. “They go out when we travel and do education programs. They’re busy animals.”
Swank said the message of the assemblies was to educate the children about animal trafficking and to understand that a lot more happens when a species becomes extinct.
“It’s a really big business that a lot of people aren’t aware of that trade in wild animals,” she said of animal trafficking. “It’s the most revenue-generating illegal activity after drugs and weapons.
“Our lesson today is realizing everything is connected. A lot of people think when an animal goes extinct, ‘it’s one species, what’s the big deal?’ A lot of people don’t realize how intertwined everything in the world is and as those species disappear, whatever impact they had on the ecosystem all of those things are affected too.”