For most kids, nothing at school engages their interest as much as a wildlife show. The interaction of a wildlife display is what is often the highlight of the year for school-aged kids, be they secondary or primary aged.
In years past, it was common for a science teacher to take their kids to the local zoo or fauna park for an excursion. However these days it is preferanble to use one of the travelling mobile zoos or school wildlife shows instead. This is because an excursion is both time consuming and costly and most of the effort is spent getting the kids to and from the excursion venue, rather than spending quality time learning.
With a wildlife incursion instead, there is no fees for the buses to and from the venue and no time wasted getting the kids to and from the venue. Furthermore, the lesson can be incorporated into the usual school timetable and with minimal disruption to the schedule of the relevant students, or for that matter the others at the school who may lose a teacher for the day if they go an excursion off the campus.
There are so many different kinds of school wildlife incursions on offer these days and in a big city like Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, teachers are spoilt for choice. Companies may bring birds of prey, sea animals, butterflies, all kinds of mammals and marsupials, such as quolls, tasmanian devils, penguins, wallabies, wombats, kangaroos and koalas, as well as minibeat insects, frogs and more.
Then there's the domestic animal incursions, farm animal shows, mobile petting zoos and more!
The downside with most mobile zoo and animal kind of incursions is the fact that most wild animals can only be shown and not handled by the kids. It simply isn't possible to hand out 20 parrots or guinea pigs to a class full of kids to hold and expect all the birds or guinea pigs to come back in one piece and with a minimum of fuss. By contrast, this is exactly what can and does happen with a school reptile show on a daily basis.
Here all the kids can and do get to hold the animals at the same time.
A hands-on reptile incursion is not only hands on and educational, but also and contrary to popular perception, it is totally safe.
Bites can and do happen, but as the animals are all non venomous, there is nothing to worry about except for a bit of blood.
In other words, don't believe all the reptile-related deqath and destruction you see on so-called TV documentaries.
What is far more common however is kids getting defecated on, and when this does happen most people treat it as a joke.
Nothing will set a crowd of kids laughing quicker than when a python sprays urine into a student's mouth!
Yes, this can and does happen occasionally. By the way, most pythons only defecate once a fortnight, so you'd be unlucky to get defecated on.
The best kids school incursion shows in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia are those run by the snakeman Eaymond Hoser and his team of expet animal handlers. They are always a big attraction for the kids. However due to their heavy demand at times like science week, education week and similar such times of the school year, they should be booked well in advance if you want to secure a date and time of your preference. He can be phoned on: 03 98123322.
As would be expected, they do get very busy as everyone wants to have the snake man and the best reptile show at their primary or secondary school, so the general advice is to make the booking before you let the kids know who is coming to give them an education like no other.
Oh, and make sure you have a few spare cameras and photographers available to capture the inevitable magic moments. Also this is one time that you may want the kids to use their mobile phones on this special day of learning, as you’d be crazy not to let them get memories of your reptile show at the same time!