Education Matters: Animals at Fresno Chaffee Zoo benefit from partnership with local school
FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE) – Students from the Center for Advanced Research and Technology created an enrichment tool for animals at the Fresno Chaffee Zoo, and due to a 20-year partnership with the school animals are benefiting from it.
A PCP pipe was designed to look like the rib cage of a carcass as it acts as a feeder and enrichment tool for animals at the zoo.
“It makes me excited and like happy that they enjoyed what we made for them,” said Jacob Villanueva a student at CART. “It was just like we were like are they going to like it, are they just going to be like get that away from us? Then they really went towards it and just started tugging it, pulling it apart and we were like heck yes let’s go that is what we wanted.”
The feeder and enrichment tool is a result of a semester-long project that involved students in Titus Patton’s environmental science class at CART and a partnership with the Fresno Chaffee Zoo.
“The goal is to build an item for an animal that elicits a natural behavior and really what we’re trying to do is bring out things that you would normally see in the wild that animals do,” Patton said.
Much of the work is done in the classroom where students do a deep dive, researching the animals and designing the tools. This year engineering students joined the project
“We stepped in to help fabricate some of the more elaborate enrichments. We have 3D-printed parts that we helped with.,” said Wade Peterson an engineering instructor at CART.
Students also work directly with zookeepers.
“We work with them to make sure everything is safe and everything is going to work. It’s something that the animals are going to be able to interact with,” said Megan Morris with the Fresno Chaffee Zoo.
Once the enrichment tools are placed in the animals’ enclosures, students monitor and take notes on how the animals interact with the objects.
“We had to look at their natural behaviors that they would usually exhibit in the natural environment and we wanted to replicate that here at the zoo,” said Fiona Wanless, a student at CART.
The work students do engage the animals both behaviorally and physically and it stems from a 20-year partnership with the Fresno Chaffee Zoo.
“One of the hallmarks of our program is that students do real-world projects. One of our goals is that they really see the opportunities that are present in the Valley and one of those major ones for people interested in science is here at the Zoo,” Patton said.
