More Amazing T.R.I.P.S. Results

Above and beyond the professional development activities of TRIPS, the teams have been conducting other project-related activities as a result of their involvement. These projects have served to solidify the local partnerships and relationships, add new partners, disseminate the results of TRIPS, and provide thousands of teachers and students with additional science-rich experiences. A few examples of these activities follow:

• The Miami Museum of Science, with funding through the local NSF Urban Systemic Initiative, conducted their own TRIPS workshops for ISI-school teams patterned after the TRIPS institute they attended at the Bronx Zoo. The ISIs participating included the Fairchild Tropical Garden, Parrot Jungle, the Miami Metro Zoo, and the Sequarium. They estimate that through this effort, an additional 125 teachers were trained and 5,375 students served.
• The Blank Park Zoo (Des Moines, Iowa) began a TRIPS team in 2002, after a TRIPS program graduate from the Lake Superior Zoo (Duluth, MN) began working at the Blank Park Zoo. Since then, the Blank Park Zoo and its partners have completed many workshops. All of the teachers in the partner school (Hiatt Middle School of Des Moines) have participated in these workshops. The team made a presentation about TRIPS to the Iowa Science Teachers Academy and the conference of the Iowa/Nebraska Museum Association. They have also involved parents by presenting an all-school parent night to feature projects completed as a result of Project TRIPS.
• The team representing the Henry Doorly Zoo and the Bancroft Academy (both in Omaha, Nebraska) have been providing a series of TRIPS workshops at the zoo in which all 6th-grade teachers in the city are required to participate. They have been working with teachers from 61 schools as well as providing supplementary Zoo visits for the students of the 150 teachers who are involved.
• The Bramble Park Zoo (Watertown, SD) and the Watertown Middle School correlated two of the project's featured curricula with science standards for South Dakota middle schools. They are also working on ways in which to integrating technology into one of the curricula. The results will be shared with the TRIPS network when it is ready. All of the seventh grade science teachers in the local district are using curricula introduced through TRIPS. In addition, the Bramble Park Zoo created a long-range strategic plan that states it will continue to add programs that incorporate the content and teaching methods acquired through TRIPS. They have begun working with five other ISIs in the area to further disseminate their TRIPS training.
• The Pocatello (Idaho) Zoo has been working with its TRIPS partner, Franklin Junior High, to involve students in the development of the Zoo's new grizzly bear exhibit. Seventh grade students used GPS units to survey the one-acre area the Zoo is using. They downloaded information into a GIS computer program and created maps of the area that are being used by the Zoo in the design and construction of the exhibit. This was an outstanding example of the application of inquiry in a real life setting and one that was illustrated and encouraged by the TRIPS Institutes.
• The Salisbury Zoo, in cooperation with Wicomico (MD) Middle School, trained 25 docents to conduct TRIPS inquiry activities with visiting students. The team also had the docents working in school classrooms to deliver student lessons. Since docents constitute a significant teaching force in many small ISIs, this was an effective way to give them access to more up-to-date teaching strategies.
• The Detroit Zoo and their TRIPS partner, the Hillside Middle School (Northville, MI), created a program offshoot through which TRIPS students are mentoring groups of younger children and helping them to create model 'rainforests' in kindergarten classrooms. The mentors and mentees have also visited the zoo together. One of the participating teachers managed to get a TRIPS curriculum adopted as part of the required middle school science programming.
• The Science Museum of Minnesota and the Apple Valley IDEA are a unique team in that the team's schools are part of an area district serving extremely high-risk students with Emotional Behavior Disorder. One of the team's teachers is using the HELP curriculum, which was illustrated in TRIPS, for 45 minutes per day with these students. He has also taken them on several visits to the museum as well as to the Minnesota Zoo, and used HELP activities when he took them on a camping trip to the Boundary Waters.
• The Tulsa Zoo and Broken Arrow Public Schools (OK) provide regularly scheduled zoo-mobile visits to TRIPS classes, and the students receive training that allows them to serve as 'explainers' at the zoo.
• As an essential part of their TRIPS activities, the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo and the Bracksville-Broadview Middle School had their TRIPS classes participate in several distance learning programs by way of videoconferences.
• The Audubon Zoo (New Orleans) and the Buckeye High School (Deville, LA) have together involved teams of teachers in collaborative inquiry-based teaching activities. They also instituted a training program for parent-chaperones involved with zoo visits, disseminating the effective teaching methods from TRIPS to these quasi-teachers, as well.
• The Myriad Botanical Gardens (Oklahoma City), the Oklahoma City Zoo, the Western Heights Middle School (Newcastle, OK) and the Etta Dale Junior High School (Yukon, OK) are together instituting complementary two-site field trip programs. Such cohesive partnerships between local ISIs tend to produce outcomes that are greater than the sum of their parts.
• The Baltimore Zoo, the Reid Park Zoo (Tucson, AZ), the Children's Academy of Arizona (Tucson), and the Columbia Academy together conducted a wetland/desert habitat comparison project.
• The Tucson International Wildlife Museum and the Amerischools Middle Academy have together created Earth Science, Rain Forest, Sonoran Desert, and Predator/Prey kits for school loans. These kits are adding another dimension of inquiry-based learning.
• The students at the Western Middle School (Louisville, KY) create 'habitat boxes' -- an activity the teams learned through the project -- to use as they mentor partner elementary school students. In addition, a 'School at the Zoo' has been created as a result of TRIPS. Local school classes spend an entire week of the school year at the Zoo. $130,000 for the project was raised from several granting agencies.
• The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens (Carlsbad, NM) formed a collaboration with the Guadeloupe Mountains National Park. A Park Ranger from Guadeloupe attended the June 2003 workshop with an educator from the Zoo. Together, they give a one-credit hour course through New Mexico State University-Carlsbad that is based, in part, on their TRIPS training.
• The Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University reports that it is working on a new NSF project with the Pequot Mashantucket Museum entitled 'Archeological Pathways,' through which students will be using a number of activities the museum staff learned in TRIPS.
• The Reid Park Zoo (TRIPS 1999) and the Tohono Chul Botanic Garden (TRIPS 2000) continue to offer professional development using TRIPS curricula to teachers in Phoenix. With a grant of $114,000, they have been able to significantly expand their TRIPS programming. With a $10,000 grant from the Joseph Stanley Leeds Foundation, they have been able to pay teachers stipends and provide them with materials.
• The Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium, Northwest Trek Wildlife Park, and the Tacoma Nature Center have seen multiple benefits as a result of TRIPS. Their teams have been using TRIPS curricula as supplemental instructional materials in the classroom as well as guides in the development of focused field trips to each of the three ISIs. Each of the focused field trips has been based on an inquiry model and on objectives of the National Science Education Standards. According to one of the TRIPS team members, 'Our teams were successful with these developments because of the training that we were afforded... through Project TRIPS.'
• After working independently during the first year of their TRIPS commitment, Busch Gardens and their TRIPS partners and the Florida Aquarium and their TRIPS partners decided to combine their professional development efforts. They have together offered several four-day workshops. The aquarium provided a 65-foot boat to take participants to an island to do inquiry activities.