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Contents tagged with animals
Day in the life of an animal care volunteer
Published On 1/1/2013The following post was written by Cindy Gray, one of our animal care volunteers at the Museum.
8:15 to 8:25
Arrive at the Museum, greet the cleaning woman who lets me in as she cleans the entry, get the key to the Look-in-Lab from security, check-in at the volunteer lounge, and put on one of the volunteer aprons. Go to the Lab, greet Celeste and Jamie and get ready to start working!
8:25 to 8:40
Change the swimming water for the Leopard frog and the drinking/soaking water for the American toad in Mysteries of the Marsh, and mist the American toad tank with RO water (“RO” water is “reverse osmosis” water, water filtered to remove chlorine and other elements that may bother amphibians, water bugs, fish, and some reptiles). Feed the frog and toad, trying to drop the crickets into their tanks, not on the carpet (I read that toads blink their eyes to help swallow their food, but I had trouble picturing it until I saw the toad capture and swallow one of the crickets I fed her one day).
8:40 to 8:45
Mist the green tree frog tank near the spotted turtles to maintain the high humidity they prefer. Sometimes one of the frogs will start “singing” as I mist -- I like to think it's because they are happy for the fresh "rain".
8:45 to 9:00
Provide fresh water for the Tiger salamander, Gray tree frogs, American toad, Cricket frogs, and Fowler’s toad in the Look-in-Lab and mist their habitats. Provide Harriet the tarantula with fresh water in her bowl and crickets.
9:00 to 9:25
Empty the water bowls for the snakes used for critter connections and provide fresh water. Sometimes right after I change her water, Coco the Fox snake takes a drink and then soaks in the fresh water. Change the paper substrate of their tanks if they have pooped. Mist with water any snakes that are shedding to help with that process. If a snake sheds overnight, take the skin out of the cage. If a snake was fed the night before, look to make sure it ate the defrosted mouse or rat.
9:20 to 10:10
Clean up after the box turtles that are used for critter connections. For the box turtles in the front window, provide fresh water, take out yesterday’s food dishes, throwing away the leftovers and putting the dish in the dishwasher, and redistribute the coconut fiber substrate. For the box turtles in the other enclosures, provide fresh water, take out yesterday’s food dishes, and change the paper if they have made a mess, in other words, everyday. When I take them out of the tanks, I put up the “slow traffic” sign that has a picture of a turtle and give the turtles worms, trying to keep an eye on them as I clean; it is surprising how fast a turtle can wander away and wedge herself into a small hiding space.
10:10 to 10:40
Tend the nursery for the Abedus (ferocious water beetles), providing them with clean water and crickets. The females lay dozens of eggs on the males’ backs, and we remove the males to small containers filled with water to protect the babies when they hatch. The young pass through numerous stages before they are big enough to go into the tank in the window so floating in the water are “exuvia,” the shed exoskeletons they have outgrown (a fun word I only learned after volunteering at the Museum.)
10:40 to 10:50
Provide hermit crabs with fresh fruit, fresh RO water, and clean salt water; clean and mist habitat.
10:50 to 11:25
Chat with the PIP volunteers (Public Interpretive Program volunteers) when they come in to get a snake or turtle for critter connections and to feed the frogs and toads for the public feeding. Make salad bowls for the turtles: greens, veggies, corn (their favorite if we have it), and berries or other fruit, topped with crushed egg shells for calcium, mealworms dusted with vitamin powder, and nightcrawlers.
11:25 to 11:40
Tidy up, give the rats corn on the cob, and say good bye to Celeste and Jamie. Check-out in the volunteer lounge, take off the apron, and return the key to security.
Not every day is the same. One day, I flooded the lab by accidentally opening the valve for the water snake tank and not noticing until I heard water splashing on the floor. Everyone was very nice about it and told me everyone floods the lab at least once! (The snakes were undisturbed.) Usually, the breaks from routine are more interesting: Harriet looking spiffier after her molt, new interns, the tiny leopard frog that was a tadpole the week before, or the hatchling Red-eared sliders and Painted turtles the horticulturists found in the garden last spring.
Cindy Gray
Animal Care Volunteer View CommentsNature on the Go Debuts in 2012
Published On 11/29/2012Do you know the difference between a mount and a study skin? Or what a bird's nest can tell us about the birds who live in it? Or what's with those honeybees that are always in the news? Well, your kids just might!
Our newest education program, Nature on the Go, connects students to real specimens from the Museum’s collections, answering these questions and delving into other exciting science and nature topics! If you wonder how we do this, take a look at some of the specimens that were prepared just for this program:
Nature on the Go allows us to bring the rich, 155 year history of the collections of the Chicago Academy of Sciences into Chicago area schools to showcase how specimens can tell us about the lives of local animals. Think about your own visit to a museum: you don’t just want to see each piece of art, set of bones, historical artifact, or plant or animal; you want to know its story! This program teaches the students we serve how to read these stories. Because the program features local animals, students will continue to make connections between what they learn in the classroom and the nature they see right outside their doors in their own neighborhoods.
We know that teachers need choices and flexibility, so we’re excited to give Nature on the Go teachers a choice for the second part of the program, which takes place after a Nature Museum educator visits the classroom. Some teachers may choose to receive funding to bring their students to the Museum on a field trip, giving the students an opportunity to connect what they learned in the classroom to the world outside of school.
Other teachers might choose to visit (with a guest) our offsite collections facility to learn more about the 95 percent of our museum collections that aren’t on display in the Museum. These teachers can learn more about the important role specimens play in scientific research and talk with our expert biologists about the stories these specimens can tell. Of course, the teachers will leave the collections facility excited to share their new knowledge with their students! We love that we can share the history of the Chicago Academy of Sciences with teachers and students.
Developed as a true collaboration between the Education and Biology Departments, this program is on its way to a school near you!
Michelle Rabkin
Student Programs CoordinatorNathan Armstrong
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