The Hindu : Kerala News : Zoo, museum to have outreach programmes

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Mar 31, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Kerala

Kerala

Zoo, museum to have outreach programmes

GENERATING AWARENESS: One of the colourful leaflets among the educational material being developed as part of the outreach programme of the Natural History Museum and the Zoo in Thiruvananthapuram.

The Natural History Museum and the Zoo in Thiruvananthapuram will soon have an outreach programme aimed at generating awareness about wildlife conservation and various aspects of ethnological studies among school and college students.

According to the plans, at least a couple of such awareness/training programmes will be held in a month. The zoo usually organises such programmes only during select occasions such as the Wildlife Week. Now, this programme will be institutionalised and expanded. There are also plans to rope in the services of NGOs to conduct such programmes.

The zoo authorities have prepared educational material — in the form of leaflets — to be distributed to the students who participate in the programmes. Superintendent of the museum S. Abu says the collection of leaflets will enable zoo authorities to provide the students something more substantial than presentations or field trips.

“What we have now done is prepare a collection of leaflets that contain details about various animals. These include the animals at the zoo and those that have been subjected to taxidermy and have been put on display at the museum. A typical leaflet would contain pictures of animals, details of their habitat and present range of distribution, their conservation status, description of body parts, height, weight and so on. This can be quick-access reference material for a student,” he says.

According to Mr. Abu, this collection of leaflets is only a beginning. More leaflets on different species of animals and birds will be added in due course. Instead of developing information folders for specific training programmes, the zoo authorities have decided to keep the process open ended. The present folder of leaflets also contains a brief history of the Thiruvananthapuram Zoo and its origins in the middle of the 19th century during the days of the British resident general Cullen and J.A. Brown, the then director of the Observatory. There is also a brief mention of the ongoing modernisation drive at the zoo and a couple of pictures of the renovated, pseudo-habitat enclosures.

The education kit was unveiled during a training programme for mahouts held recently at the zoo. Zoo director Elcy George says the education programme will be finalised shortly.

G. Mahadevan

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Kerala