Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello everyone!

My name is Jess, and ever since i was a little girl, i loved the Croc Hunter...

I am 15 now, and i have decided that with the reptiles i already have ( 1 corn snake, 1 hogg island boa, 1 leopard gecko...and soon a tegu!) i would like to start doing an educational program at my school...

i have already talked to a few teachers & parents & they all seem to think its a great idea...

i am hoping to start in the elementary school and perhaps work my way up... and even do other "shows"...

my goal is to help the kids to love and/or respect reptiles instead of fearing them...

i was just curious...does anyone have any advice for me?

...i'm also hoping to expand my collection...

also, i am the neighborhood "snake-wrangler"..haha...i love it... i am hoping to potentially turn that into another hobby this summer...perhaps advertise a little...just to keep the 'creepy-crawlies' safe from shovels!

anyways...any advice? comments? anything at all would be appreciated!

thanks everyone!

jess

Be careful with your leo. They drop their tails readily.

Lol, I thought about doing the same thing, im a Junior in high school and all the teachers want me to do a snake show about our local snakes, I may do it next year, but right now im too shy to get up in front of the whole school. I think this is a good idea, It may help a little, but less face it, Most people wont listen and there going to kill every snake they see, Lets just hope it gets to some people, especially the older students. And about the "snake Wrangler" I get atleast two or three calls a week to come catch snakes from peoples yards, usually old women lol, and most of the time, its usually a black rat or black kingsnake.

Hi,
1. Use a good secure transport container. I use Rubbermaid with handle locks. And never let the animals out of your site.
2. Have paper towel close by. I always have a snake that poops during a presentation.
3. I never let anyone hold my reptiles at a presentation because of cross transfer, an accidental dropping of the animal, and the very rear chance of a bite (show stopper). I do this because of the liability factor.
4. Bring a couple of dried shed skins to let them hold and look at.
5. Prepare your presentation prior to the show. Have all the facts about your reptiles, world location, heating and eating habits, longevity in captivity, and general care.
6. Take the total time line allowed for your presentation and cut it down for each reptile.
7. The transport and showing can be stressful on some reptiles. Keep the presentation time for each animal short and have a good question and answer session after the showing.
Hope this helped you.

Is that picture in the post a cribo?

very impressive looking animal.

Thank you. Yes it is a female Black Tail. She is handled with care. She sports attitude!!!

There's nothing like a living, rope of muscle with teeth at the end to inspire respect.

She's going to top out around 10ft correct?

or is she already that big?

You are correct. Sounds like you know your Dry’s. I respect that she can rip me without provocation in a second.

She is going on four years at 5’7”.The picture is of her last year. Her mate is five and well over 6’. He is much more tolerating. I will breed her next year. Maybe it will slow her down some.

I also have the large Black Dry’s

I have done shows in school for the last 20 years and I love it. I only do it 1 or 2 times a year, usually for two classes or about 3o to 40 kids at a time. I use a slide show and cover about 45 minutes to go over snakes in general, then shedding, then eating, then poisonous snakes and how to tell the difference, then common local snakes and their benefit to the community, ie I have a few slides of a speckled king eating a small rattlesnake.
Then I do a Q/A session. While i am doing this, I get out the lave animals and show them off one at a time. I do not let anyone hold then except me. And never more than one animal out at a time. At the start of the Q/A session, tell the kids you just wnat to hear questions now, NOT stories..........tell them they can tell stories later if there is enough time, otherwise you will hear some very long and not really very intersting stories that the other kids don't want to hear and you will loose your audience.
I like to bring a bunch of snake skins, and often a few dried hatched egg shells and I leave them with the teacher to pass out later thru the week for good behavior, or use them as rewards in any way he/she chooses.
I also walk around during the Q/A questions and let the kids touch the snake (only if they want to of course), and sometimes the teachers will and sometimes not. And then I pass around some wet wipes to make sure the kids know to wash their hands after handling animals.
You could probably pull a bunch of pics off the internet and put them on a disc to load into some of the audio visual equipment the schools will have available if you ask ahead of time.
Well, I hope that gives you some more ideas, Brad Lichtenhan

Knowing the audience is a big one. For example, my stepmother's second grade class? I never should have set the containers (Sterilite clear snap-top boxes) where they could see them. As soon as they saw my creamsicle corn, they only wanted to talk about "the orange one" and "when will you get out the orange one?". I hid the boxes for the next group and their attention was much more focused!

Also, as a previous poster said: you have to make "questions" very clear. Every kid in the class claimed to have had "a big python!!" at some point and wanted to talk about it at length, which can really derail anything you're trying to teach them if you can't (politely) get them to shut up

Other posters have covered anything else I'd say, about not letting others handle them and bringing in shed skins too. If you have a good shed that has the eyecaps in good shape, that seemed to impress little kids for some reason. More in-depth facts would obviously be in order for a higher age/education level, like the differences in colubrids versus boids versus group-of-choice in an evolutionary scheme, etc.

Good luck with it! The more educated people are about herps, the better.

-P
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1.0.0 Normal corn snake (Frito)
1.0.0 Creamsicle corn (Tang)
0.1.0 Ghost corn (Raynham)
1.1.2 Bay of LA rosy boas (Rivet, Cali, and Cali's unnamed babies)
0.1.0 Cape Gopher (Mole)
0.0.1 African House Snake (Casa)