March 14, 2009 -- From deep in Brooklyn, PS 174 students took the subway to Manhattan's Central Park to visit the Zoo. We began our tour with a walk through the rain forest.  We saw black-and-white lemurs.  We got to hear them make loud calls in the forest.  We also saw Victoria crowned pigeons and bats that were hanging upside down.  The bats, of course, fired up a conversation about being bitten and vampires.  Then it was on see some raccoons, who played shy and wouldn't show themselves.  Disappointed. we walked over to the arctic exhibit. 

There, we saw polar bears and penguins.  The polar bears were the highlight of the exhibit.  We enjoyed watching a huge polar bear swim back and forth in frigid water with no discomfort.  We also enjoyed watching the penguins and puffins.  The boys were very entertained with the puffin's ability to dive very deep into the water and come back up with ease.  The younger students enjoyed watching the penguins dive and swim around.   We then saw the snow monkeys on their rocky habitat. 

We next visited with the Children's zoo.  There, the children had a chance to feed sheep, llamas, goats, and a cow. Some of the kids were too scared to feed the animals, but they definitely enjoyed watching their peers be slobbered on by the cow.  We had a special treat: A female sheep gave birth the night before so we go to see the lamb sleeping.

Finally we watched the zoo staff feed some sea lions. Some of the students were so intrigued by the zoo staff's ability to train the sea lions to perform "tricks," they asked about how someone could get a job training the animals.

Submitted by ICO Certified Leader Rebeka Schubert