Has anyone here ever attended (or known anyone who has attended) a school within a zoo, such the high school on the grounds of the Omaha Zoo)? What is the average day at a school like this? Is it really any different from a regular school?
Schools Within Zoos
- Thread starter birdsandbats
- Start date
filovirus
Well-Known Member
The Minnesota Zoo near me has a high school associated with it- the School of Environmental Studies. I'm 99% sure it's on Minnesota Zoo property and to some degree works with the zoo, but I don't think the zoo like. Owns it or anything. I didn't end up going there (did dual enrollment instead with a nearby college) but can attest to how it works. Calling it SES from here on out (pronounced ess-ee-ess) since that's what we tend to refer to it around here.
SES is considered a magnet school and only serves juniors and seniors. When you're nearing the end of your sophomore year you're given three options, basically: Continue regular schooling at your high school; enroll in a program called PSEO, post-secondary enrollment option, at a college; or apply to SES.
Each class- that is, each group of students graduating in a given year- does not take individual language arts, social studies, and environmental science classes. What this is basically is one big class taught by several different teachers, each with a different specialty. The school operates on a trimester system and each trimester focuses on a different theme question. For juniors, the three questions this year are...
Students also engage in different activities in the fall/winter/spring trimester. Juniors this year are doing a "pond profile", an overnight wood cabin stay, and a deciduous forest project involving fourth graders; seniors are engaging in a biodiversity study at Ft. Snelling park, participating in a school-wide research conference, and doing sustainability studies.
When I toured it students had cubicles, which I thought was strange. Not lockers- students got to use cubicles instead, and got to decorate them and stuff. Some students even had pet fish. The school has quite a robust collection of animals on-hand, but mostly typical class pet fare. Cats, rodents, reptiles, birds... pretty decent variety.
The "vibe" when I was in high school (read: less than 5 years ago) was that SES was like... an alternative school. A lot of theater kids went there, a lot of kids who "didn't fit in" ended up going there. I can't attest to the difficulty of the curriculum or anything, but most of the real brainy kids seemed to either stay at the regular high school doing AP courses or did PSEO. I think it was sometimes presented as like... "this is the zoo school! go here and work with the zoo!" but truly nobody i know who went there ended up even working in animal science. it's mostly biologists. important! but not working at the zoo.
Their site is here. Might be worth exploring for better answers, as most of my experience is secondhand or a few years old.
SES is considered a magnet school and only serves juniors and seniors. When you're nearing the end of your sophomore year you're given three options, basically: Continue regular schooling at your high school; enroll in a program called PSEO, post-secondary enrollment option, at a college; or apply to SES.
Each class- that is, each group of students graduating in a given year- does not take individual language arts, social studies, and environmental science classes. What this is basically is one big class taught by several different teachers, each with a different specialty. The school operates on a trimester system and each trimester focuses on a different theme question. For juniors, the three questions this year are...
- Fall - What are the relationships between organisms and water?
- Winter - How did things come to be?
- Spring - What is your relationship to the natural world?
- Fall - Considering the dynamics of diversity how can we manage for what we value?
- Winter - What is the impact of human systems on environmental health?
- Spring - Sustainability considered, how then, should I live?
Students also engage in different activities in the fall/winter/spring trimester. Juniors this year are doing a "pond profile", an overnight wood cabin stay, and a deciduous forest project involving fourth graders; seniors are engaging in a biodiversity study at Ft. Snelling park, participating in a school-wide research conference, and doing sustainability studies.
When I toured it students had cubicles, which I thought was strange. Not lockers- students got to use cubicles instead, and got to decorate them and stuff. Some students even had pet fish. The school has quite a robust collection of animals on-hand, but mostly typical class pet fare. Cats, rodents, reptiles, birds... pretty decent variety.
The "vibe" when I was in high school (read: less than 5 years ago) was that SES was like... an alternative school. A lot of theater kids went there, a lot of kids who "didn't fit in" ended up going there. I can't attest to the difficulty of the curriculum or anything, but most of the real brainy kids seemed to either stay at the regular high school doing AP courses or did PSEO. I think it was sometimes presented as like... "this is the zoo school! go here and work with the zoo!" but truly nobody i know who went there ended up even working in animal science. it's mostly biologists. important! but not working at the zoo.
Their site is here. Might be worth exploring for better answers, as most of my experience is secondhand or a few years old.
Conor McGarry
Well-Known Member
I believe the Sana Barbra Zoo has some sorta summer school program that teaches kids about wildlife. My local zoo, Seneca Park Zoo, has 5 class rooms that are used for summer camps
