Zoo Tour Stop 1: Oklahoma City Zoo

The first stop on our Zoo Tour was the Oklahoma City Zoo.  We had a great time and the kids learned a ton!  I’ll let Zach analyze the zoo because that’s his area of expertise but as a mom and teacher, I really appreciated the zoo keepers.  They spent lots of time with my crew answering questions and telling us fun stories about the animals they were taking care of.  It really went a long way to making the animals more “real” and giving the kids an investment in learning about them.

My favorite moment was at the end of our day.  We walked in to see the bears and they were in their “home” not visible.  But then the zoo keeper came out with their evening meal.  She distributed all the food through the habitat.  Fish, a bone of some sort, vegetables, oranges, apples, strawberries, and a bunch of dry food that reminded me of dog food.  Once she was finished distributing the food all over, she went back inside and shortly after the bears were released and came back outside.  They walked around smelling the food.  But I was fascinated to see they bypassed all the fresh food and started eating the dry dog-food-like pebbles first.