Zoo Teen Naturalist Volunteer
Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
Volunteered and engaged with visitors of the Indianapolis Zoo. Focused on education of animals in their enclosures and fun facts about diet, biological features, habitat, conservation status, and more. Each station we worked came with artifacts that guests could interact with and gave us something to engage in conversation about (artifacts included casts of animal skulls or bones, feathers, teeth, and more). Ended all talks with a take-home message about conservation and simple actions that they could take at home or in their communities that could directly help animals and wildlife conservation around the world. Each day also involved a "behind the scenes" experience for the volunteer group, which allowed us to go with staff members and learn about the different animals and what they do for their career, what their education background is, and any other questions that arose. From this, I learned the many different aspects of running a zoo (from the diets of each animal and how to prepare food to performing medical check-ups).