# Finally...our Classroom Invert Zoo!



## Raventears (Jan 27, 2010)

I hope this is the right place to post this, but our classroom invert zoo website is FINALLY up and running! I am working on putting up the pics the kiddos took of our current livestock, so bare with me, but it should be up and viewable now. ) Please sign our guest book, become a member, and help spread the work that inverts are being studied and cared for (loved by most of our students) down in Canutillo, Texas! Thank you for the time and continued suport of our Entomology program! 
Keeley Leigh Muncrief
Horticulture/Entomology teacher/FFA Advisor, CHS

website is: http://ourinvertzoo.webs.com/ 
Thanks again for your visit to our zoo...in advance!


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## endoflove (Jan 27, 2010)

hey thats great LOL! i wanna see pics and my little rosie agian  take good care of her!


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## zonbonzovi (Jan 27, 2010)

Good for you!  Sharing creatures with the youngsters always reminds me of the excitement I had when I first got into the hobby.

Reactions: Like 1


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## kimji (Feb 13, 2010)

Great initiative! Many youngsters just see spiders as scary creatures that need to be killed, its good to make them understand the wonders of nature :clap:
I visit my children's school also to teach them about arachnids and scorpions. Keep up the good work!

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## RoachGirlRen (Feb 14, 2010)

Very cool! I applaud your efforts to teach children that invertebrates are fascinating rather than "icky." Way to go! Keep up the good work.

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## TheTsupreme (Feb 25, 2010)

Great! just whatch those children so they dont get near that OBT

Reactions: Like 1 | Agree 1


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## Widowman10 (Feb 26, 2010)

nice! saw on your website you had a wolf, and were wondering the ID? if you haven't figured it out already, it's most likely a Hogna carolinensis. they are amazing, the kids will prob love that one! very cool. wish my teachers would have done this...

Reactions: Like 1


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## TomM (Feb 26, 2010)

Widowman10 said:


> wish my teachers would have done this...


+100...The coolest class pet I had was a blue crayfish in 3rd grade.  He was okay, but tarantulas would have been better.

Reactions: Like 1


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## apoohneicie (Feb 26, 2011)

Awesome. They are so beautiful...wish we had them in my high school!


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## Pulk (Feb 27, 2011)

You have an OBT in a high school classroom? 
I went to an unusually tasteful HS and I wouldn't trust my peers around one of those... good luck/congratulations.

Reactions: Like 1 | Agree 1


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## KnightinGale (Feb 27, 2011)

The site looks great! I love the combined benefit of this. Apart from having great teaching aids and educating the kids, you're educating the public and giving the kids the tools to do so as well. Even the website is an ongoing project itself. Very very cool. Nice job!

Knight in Gale

Reactions: Like 1


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## kylestl (Mar 2, 2011)

Is that a phoneutria on the home page? I would watch having that in classroom if it is.

Reactions: Agree 1


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## loxoscelesfear (Mar 3, 2011)

Widowman10 said:


> nice! saw on your website you had a wolf, and were wondering the ID? if you haven't figured it out already, it's most likely a Hogna carolinensis. they are amazing, the kids will prob love that one! very cool. wish my teachers would have done this...


as widowman10 stated over a year ago , Carolina wolf indeed

Reactions: Like 1 | Agree 1


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## atraxrobustus (Dec 5, 2017)

Raventears said:


> I hope this is the right place to post this, but our classroom invert zoo website is FINALLY up and running! I am working on putting up the pics the kiddos took of our current livestock, so bare with me, but it should be up and viewable now. ) Please sign our guest book, become a member, and help spread the work that inverts are being studied and cared for (loved by most of our students) down in Canutillo, Texas! Thank you for the time and continued suport of our Entomology program!
> Keeley Leigh Muncrief
> Horticulture/Entomology teacher/FFA Advisor, CHS
> 
> ...


says your site is "frozen", and to have the owner contact the hosting service.


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## MrTwister (Dec 5, 2017)

Original post is 8 years old.


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## atraxrobustus (Dec 5, 2017)

MrTwister said:


> Original post is 8 years old.


Oh, Ok. so they don't prune the forum. Good to know.


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## Raventears (Jun 29, 2020)

Hiya! I know my original post is very old, but I am reviving our invert zoo at my new high school, not too far from where I was teaching, but I switched to o working in NM rather than TX. I will try to reply, albeit forever old, to the past posts, my apologies for not keeping up the website. New website coming soon... I promise!

Reactions: Optimistic 1


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## The Snark (Jun 30, 2020)

@Raventears Since you are in a school you could easily add another aspect to your endeavor by keeping an ongoing log of events. Not only teach about inverts and animal husbandry but also delve into scientific methodology in keeping them healthy under controlled circumstances. Theory -> tests -> Hypothesis. Mortality rate, optimal growth, optimal habitat, invasive organisms etc etc.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Raventears (Jun 30, 2020)

The Snark said:


> @Raventears Since you are in a school you could easily add another aspect to your endeavor by keeping an ongoing log of events. Not only teach about inverts and animal husbandry but also delve into scientific methodology in keeping them healthy under controlled circumstances. Theory -> tests -> Hypothesis. Mortality rate, optimal growth, optimal habitat, invasive organisms etc etc.


I do keep an activity log of sorts, feeding, cleaning, breeding, etc... I will definitely look into delving further into the numbers and data collection\entry related skills, I hadn't thought of that angle. Great idea, thanks!


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## The Snark (Jun 30, 2020)

Raventears said:


> I do keep an activity log off sorts, feeding, cleaning, breeding, etc... I will definitely look into delving further into the numbers and data collection\entry related skills. Great idea, thanks!


Consider contacting a university bio-science department that works with animal husbandry and getting a run down on the methodologies used. Or just about any vet can give you a run down on their journey though veterenary school. The sciences and methods involved. You can really open up a much larger world for your students.


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## Raventears (Jun 30, 2020)

I have industry experience as well as degrees in Horticulture, Agriculture and Extension Educ, and half of a M.S. in Forensic Entomology, I can contact my former professors and friends at UN-L or NMSU for input. I am not ignorant to data applications in many sciences (as well as the application of Entomology into each as well) but will research and contact those people I need to in order to give my students the best experience I can. I currently teach SPED\science so can, will, and do incorporate the zoo into each of my classes to expand the kiddos' experience, the days info can go into each of the classes I teach differently. (Bio, Chem, and Physics are what I'll be teaching next year.) Thank you for the ideas\suggestions! I will keep them in mind!  Maybe you can provide some of that input one day. (Just a thought since you offered the advice.)

Reactions: Award 1


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## The Snark (Jun 30, 2020)

@Raventears FANTASTIC!! With a background like that you have all the tools to take it from just another class in skool and turn things into a life enriching series of programs.
I don't mean to tell you your business but just a suggestion: intrigue. Instill incentive. Excite curiosity. Make every student a scientist working on their own hypothesis. All scientists are detectives, each with their own methodologies in solving mysteries. Data gathering, critical and destructive analysis. Multiple hypothesis. All the scientific methods have their roots in the most basic easy to understand functions and processes.

A science class. The project on the blackboard: "Let's drive path lab crazy." Every student took four swabs from somewhere on their bodies and cultured them. Then pass analysis, determining the predominant organisms. Then the detective work. Probable origins of the organisms. Pathways. Time frames. Ideal growth conditions. Off into forensic analysis. Predictions to be held against critical analysis. And a little comedy here and there as the class discovers who took swabs from around which locations or orifices. That's a fungus. Do we have a foot fetish here? Gram neg reminiscent of...? Oh come on. Give us a hard one.

By the way, when teaching science it always helped me to be reminded that all sciences are open ended. They are constantly growing, learning and adapting like all successful organisms. A nutshell with examples of this would be the VLT which has various condensed simplified progressions of it's evolution well documented. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Large_Telescope. Something an on top of it teacher could take students on a virtual stroll through in an hour or a few days.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Ferrachi (Jul 1, 2020)

That'a to bad about the website... I never even got to see it, can't wait for the new website !

Classroom invert zoo, such a great idea !

Reactions: Like 1


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