Snapshot Serengeti Talk

UTTIA School Project- How to make more natural habitats for zoo animals

  • lkrish by lkrish

    University of Texas at Tyler Innovation Academy students at the Tyler, Longview and Palestine campus are working on a school wide project how to make more natural habitat enclosures for zoo animals ( www.innovationzoo.weebly.com) This discussion board is dedicated to the students to post their questions, share their collections and discuss their findings.

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  • agentry by agentry

    Hello, My name is Astrid Gentry and I am the 5-6 Science Teacher at the UT Tyler Innovation Academy. My students are very exited about working with SnapShop Serengeti while they are designing their natural habitat enclosures. We really appreciate the opportunity to learn, and participate with Snapshot Serengeti! Happy Classifying!

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  • kosmala by kosmala scientist

    Thanks for posting, Ikrish and agentry. I'm looking forward to your students' questions.

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  • kellinora by kellinora admin

    Hi. I'm one of the educators working in the Zooniverse team. We have some resources for using Snapshot Serengeti in the classroom posted on our educational website You can find them here ZooTeach. If you develop anything for your class using this project, we'd love for you to share it with other educators by posting on ZooTeach. Good luck!

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  • texas10 by texas10

    What types of grass and shrubs does the herbivores eat in the Savannah? Do you think the zoo animals should have a similar variety to be healthy and happy ?

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  • chrish2001 by chrish2001

    I am enjoying being able to see the animals in their own habitat and not being disturbed! Have any of the animals ever found a camera and played with one or tried to eat one?

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  • dms246 by dms246 moderator in response to chrish2001's comment.

    It happens all the time, chrish2001! 😃

    Ali, the scientist/researcher who is responsible for choosing where to put the cameras, and who regularly goes round to check them, has written an article about it in the Snapshot Serengeti blog :

    There's also a cool sequence of images at the start of another article she wrote, showing a hyena deciding to chew up a camera 😄 :

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  • kosmala by kosmala scientist in response to texas10's comment.

    texas10, there are many different species of grass and shrubs in the Serengeti. Different animals eat different vegetation. For example, giraffes like acacia leaves, Thomson's gazelle eat short grasses, and zebras mostly eat grass, but will sometimes nibble on shrubs if there isn't enough grass around. You can read about some of the major plants and trees in the Serengeti here: http://www.serengeti.org/plantlife.html

    As for what to feed zoo animals, I imagine it's important for the zoo animals to have a fairly diverse diet within the limits of what they eat in the wild -- just like it's important for you to eat a variety of foods, too. Zookeepers also need to factor in what is possible to actually grow nearby and how much growing or buying different foods cost.

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