Lancaster Reptile Show Cancelled

[drache]

it's taken me a while to put snakes into a different light in this yuppy neighborhood we moved into because of the good public school.
The school has been a great place to spread the word.
Mikhaila's teachers have been welcoming my herp visits and the science teacher is really cool.
Next Expo two of Mikhaila's classmates are going - one to shop for a Crested Gecko, the other just to look for now, but he really wants a beardie.
Lots of parents who tell me the are creeped out by snakes, end up holding, or at least touching one at my house, and changing their minds about them.

[GarterGuy]

Yeh, I do talks for middle school kids every now and then as well. The last time I did one, it was at a park where the kids went around to different stations and I had the Reptile Amphibian station. I took along my big PI Kingsnake, so the kids could see and hadle a real snake. Surprisingly enough, every single kid actually held the snake. No one was afraid of it or freaked out by it at all. Was very cool and was able to answer a lot of questions and discredit a lot of misinformation the kids had. Felt kind of sorry for my snake (Babe) though....she was exhausted by the end of the day.....she's not used to getting that much attention...LOL.
Roy

[drache]

Yeah - I find the kids to be generally more open than the parents.
Of course kids also don't want to come off as uncool in front of their peers. That helps them overcome a lot of initial trepidation.
I love it though when one of them, who's had no exposure to herps before, finds that they really like holding a snake, and the snake mellows in their hands.

[Cazador]

It's a great feeling to see a classroom of kids ooo'ing and ahhh'ing at snakes, but it's an even better feeling when the timid kids in the back give way to curiosity, overcome their fears, and then begin to respect the snakes for their amazingly different ways of life .

[Stefan-A]

April 25th I'll see if I can get 20-year-old kids to start ooing and ahhhing at snakes. We're currently practicing writing scientific texts and so we have to write a report (hjelte, vad är "fackuppsats" på engelska?) on the evolution, taxonomy and ecology on a species or a group of species of our choosing. It's to be handed in and the presentation is on the 25th next month.

Guess what genus I chose. I think I might be a bit ambitious compared to the rest of the class. They all chose large mammals that are easily identified (tiger, bear, orca, african elephant last time I checked the list). I, on the other hand, had problems deciding between Thamnophis, Thamnophis sirtalis and Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis.