Community colleges are known for providing hands-on experiences to students, ranging from auto shops, to machine shops, to working farms.
But some two-year colleges take such curricular practicum a step further, operating “living labs” that incorporate the direct field work into public-facing businesses of one type or another. These include hotels, restaurants, cosmetology salons — and even on-campus zoos.
Wild animal education and care
The 10-acre Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo in Gainesville, Florida, which houses more than 70 species including bald eagles, alligators and Asian small-clawed otters, is supervised by 10 full-time staff members and maintained by 100 or so students in the college’s half-century-old zoo animal technology program.
The zoo itself, in operation since 1974, provides the training ground for students, who take classes in topics like animal care, animal husbandry, nutrition and mammals.
This article is an excerpt from the current issue of the Community College Journal, published bimonthly by the American Association of Community Colleges.
“As they are doing that, they are taking lab classes where they are zookeepers,” says Jonathan Miot, zoo director and professor. “There aren’t any paid zookeepers; students are the sole caretakers.”
As an accredited zoo open to the public, the facility’s husbandry, finances, safety and other particulars have to be up to high standards, he adds.
During the first semester, students learn fundamental skills like how to clean the zoo facilities, how to use necessary tools, and how to give and receive information, whether face-to-face or over radio technology, Miot says.
“At the end of that first semester is when we start putting them into animal zones, where they start working with and taking care of the animals,” he says.
The zoo animal technology program employs four full-time and usually about four adjunct faculty, Miot says. Full-timers come from the industry and from all over the country, including through the job board operated by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA), the accrediting body, he says, while adjuncts are often alumni who live in the surrounding area.
The Teaching Zoo is open to the public every day except Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas. Miot says online reviewers often express opinions like, “the staff was very welcoming,” or, “the staff was very outgoing.”
He adds, “When they comment about the staff, they really mean the students — the zookeepers. The zookeepers need to care for the animals but also deliver the animals’ stories. That’s what zoos do above all else. … We train the students right from the beginning that that’s one of the most important things; it reflects in how the public sees us, and how they value us.”
