Riverside Elementary students get creepy crawlies

Dick Schnelle, a volunteer with the Louisville Zoo, walked slowly around the silent classroom filed with about 30 students at Riverside Elementary School, with a gray and brown, 2 1⁄2 foot long rosy boa entwined in his fingers and trailing up his arm.

Kristen Trimble, 10, slowly extended two fingers, timidly touched the back of the snake and quickly pulled away.

“It was kind of scary and it kind of felt real soft and kind of silky,” Trimble said after the event.

The program, dubbed Creepy Crawlies, from the zoo came to the school Monday to teach students about how all life on the planet is interconnected.

“We want to connect students to this amazing planet of ours, especially with creatures people typically think are yucky,” said Marcelle Gianelloni, curator of education with the zoo. “We want everyone to understand that everything is connected on this planet, and the creepy crawlies are just as important as the cute and fuzzies.”

Gianelloni said students today suffer from “nature deficit disorder” from not being outside enough.

So, thanks to a grant, the zoo is bringing the outside to local schools, including four classrooms at Riverside.

“This is really to reinforce things we’ve learned and also it’s an engaging way to learn,” said Cara Rothrock, fourth-grade teacher. “It gives them the basics of scientific information and it’s on the ISTEP, so it’s good for that, too.”

Students got to pet a giant Madagascar hissing cockroach, a millipede and the snake. Students also got to see a live White’s tree frog, a tarantula’s shed skin and more.

Though, not everyone was up for the hands-on lesson.

“Nah, I’m good,” 10-year-old Dylan White quickly said when asked if he wanted to pet the cockroach.

“He’s a bug,” White later explained as to his reasoning for not wanting to pet him.

However, he said he enjoyed the event.

“It’s different from other things that usually happen in school and it’s informative,” White said.

Christin Brewer happily touched the millipede.

“It felt hard and soft,” the 10-year-old explained. “You would push on him and his shell was hard, but his skin was soft.”

The lesson about creepy crawlies also included information about what the students could do to help all the Earth’s critters.

“I learned to protect our planet, because [pollution] can hurt the animals,” Trimble said.

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LEARN ABOUT THE CRITTERS

Giant Madagascar hissing cockroach

• They are very resilient. They can go without food for three months. Some can survive being frozen for two days. They can live for five to seven days with their heads severed. Some can even survive 100 times the amount of radiation that would kill a human.

• They are scavengers and clean our environment and help recycle organic litter.

• They also serve as food for a variety of small mammals, birds, spiders, amphibians and reptiles.

• Although cockroaches are not threatened at the moment, the forests they inhabit are among the most threatened habitats in Madagascar. The forests are threatened because of slash-and-burn agriculture and mining activities.

• The hissing noise is made by depressing its abdomen and expelling air out of the spiracles with which it uses to breathe.

• Hissing is used to communicate during mating, by males to defend territories, and can startle predators, giving the insect a chance to escape.

Chilean rose hair tarantula

• Chilean rose hair tarantulas will “kick” off the hairs on their body as a defensive mechanism. The hairs serve as an irritant to potential predators which, in the wild, consist of other tarantulas, birds and reptiles. Even some species of wasps will hunt tarantulas.

• These spiders reach adult size in three to four years. Mature females will have a body length of up to about 3 inches and a leg span of about 6 inches. The males have smaller bodies but have the same size leg spans.

Rosy boa

• The Rosy Boa is found in the southwestern United States in the states of California, Arizona and Mexico.

• Rosy boas spend most of their lives concealed beneath rocks and in crevices to escape the elements and natural predators.

• They are one of the smallest members of the boa family.

White’s tree frog

• They are found in northern and eastern Australia, the islands in Torres Straits, New Guinea and have been introduced to New Zealand.

• The name “White’s tree frog” refers to the name of the man who first described the species.

• The waxy blue-green color and the rolling skin folds of fatty material have also earned the White’s tree frog the nickname “dumpy tree frog.”

• These frogs are very tame in nature and have little fear of humans. They can be active in day or night. The male calls year round from high positions in the trees. When threatened they emit an ear-piercing distress call. During the dry season they cover themselves in a cocoon of sloughed epidermis and mucus and burrow to keep moist. During the summer rainy season they feast for a few days then start to breed.

— Louisville Zoo

Clark County

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Students get hands-on lesson on animals through Louisville Zoo program

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