2008 Zoo Applications are closed.
ZOO EXPEDITIONS
from Project Dragonfly at
Miami University
and the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden
In the last few years as part of Zoo Expeditions, educators and their students have compared the activity of wild and house cats, who plays more: gorillas or first-graders, and whether caring for a plant changes how kids care for their school.
Zoo Expeditions is a suite of graduate courses that merge the academic expertise of Miami University's Project Dragonfly with the world-class wildlife conservation of the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden (CZBG) to create extraordinary professional development opportunities for educators.
Taught by Zoo and Miami instructors, each graduate course is designed to fit the needs of working teachers and informal educators, occurring on four Saturdays in the fall of 2008. These Saturdays at the Cincinnati Zoo include traditional lecture, discussion seminars, and direct investigation of the Zoo's wealth of animal and plant life. In addition to the face-to-face experiences at the Zoo, participants also engage with instructors and course peers weekly throughout the semester in an easy-to-use, Web learning community to discuss assignments, course readings, and their semester-long research projects.
Since 2003 when the Earth Expeditions program began, more than 300 regional educators have been accepted to and participated in Zoo Expeditions courses. For the fall 2008 courses, Zoo Expeditions will accept 70 qualified educators on a first-come, first-served basis.
Earth Expeditions is supported by funding from the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, Project Dragonfly, and Miami University. As part of its support for the program, Miami waives all tuition for accepted applicants; 2008 Zoo Expeditions tuition waivers total $1,300 for Ohio residents and $2,950 for residents outside the state.
The deadline to apply to Zoo Expeditions is July 15, 2008; however please remember that qualified applicants are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. Please get your application in as soon as possible.
| At the Zoo: | Saturdays are Sept. 13, Oct. 4, Nov. 1, and Dec. 6, 2008 + Project Work |
| At Home or School: | Sept. 1 - Dec. 9, 2008, on the Web |
| Cost: | $175 + Course Texts |
| Credits: | 3 graduate credits from Miami University; $1,300 in-state and $2,950 out-of-state tuition waived |
Items to prepare for your Zoo Expedition application...
- Be sure you have a resume or curriculum vita (CV) prepared and saved on your computer in PDF, Microsoft Word, or Rich Text Format (RTF). You will be asked to upload your resume/CV as part of this application.
- Applicants may be from any educational setting; it's not a requirement that you work in a school. However, if you are a teacher or administrator at a school, you will need information about your students' demographics and your school's academic performance. You will be asked to provide the percentage of students at your school:
- on free and reduced-price lunches;
- with limited English proficiency;
- with disabilities; and
- from different ethnicities, including Black, Hispanic, Asian or Pacific Islander, American Indian or Alaskan Native, and Multiracial.
- You will also be asked about the academic performance of your school or district. All of this information concerning your students' demographics and school performance should be readily accessible from your school administration. Or you can look on the Web on your state's department of education homepage. If you cannot locate this information, please estimate as best you can.
- Once you start the application, you will not be able to stop and save your answers for a future visit. So you'll want to complete your application in one sitting. If your resume/CV is prepared, you should be able to complete the application within 30 minutes.
- Please do not wait until the last minute to submit your form electronically, as courses may fill early.
Our application is best-viewed using Internet Explorer 7 (IE7), Firefox, or Safari; therefore, in preparation for completing the application, you may want to click to download the most recent version of IE7, Firefox, or Safari. Then, when you complete the application, be sure to use that browser.
