Saving Animals One Dog or Lion at a Time - Exploration Summer Programs

NORWOOD, Mass., Jan. 25, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Since when have 12-year-olds spent the summer learning how to perform ultrasounds on dogs and perfecting the use of the blow dart to anesthetize zoo animals? Since the world of summer camp moved beyond campfires and Kumbaya. Learning to care for animals, domestic and exotic, is what 11- and 12-year-olds do when they attend the Exploration Veterinary Focus Program outside of Boston, Massachusetts.

According to Moira Kelly, the Executive Director of Exploration Summer Programs, "Lots of kids think they might want to be veterinarians, but they really aren't aware of what vets do. Our vet program tries to expose students to myriad ways they could work with animals including through a domestic animal vet practice, to rescue operations for wild animals, and even the complexities of caring for zoo animals."

One thing that makes Exploration's Focus Program unique is the emphasis placed on real-world applications. Students are treated as budding professionals. They aren't sitting through hours of lectures. Instead, it's learning by doing. Students examine mammal hearts, inspect radiographs of common pet injuries, and take the vital signs of farm animals. Professional vets teach students how to treat and suture a wound, how to perform a snout-to-tail assessment on a rescued dog, and how to enhance a gorilla or giraffe's life in captivity. Students complete the program certified in pet First Aid and CPR.

"I really wanted them to get their hands on a dog and their ears on his chest, and just feeling everything - what a normal heart sounds like, what a normal belly feels like, what ears smell like, and what a mouth looks like up close," Dr. Dani Cimino, a veterinarian with Crossroads Mobile Vet, said. "In vet school, you don't actually get to handle an animal in the clinics until about two and a half years into it. But we went straight to actually touching them - because that's what ignites the passion."

As Jennifer Gresham, the Education Director at Zoo New England, said, "I think this age group ... they're at that point in their lives where they really start thinking about what it is they want to be when they grow up - and what's realistic to be when they grow up. And to have experiences like this gives them a very clear idea of how a zoo functions, and what it takes to take care of exotic animals and all of the different elements that go into working with them."

Founded in 1976, "Explo" is a series of residential and day academic summer enrichment programs far different from a traditional summer camp. Students entering grades 4 through 12 participate in fun and exciting projects in the visual and performing arts, science, politics, government, business, technology and more. It is run on the campuses of Wellesley College, Yale University, and St. Mark's School in Southborough, MA.

Students come to Explo from New England, across the United States and from 60 countries, including Brazil, China, India, Israel, Nigeria and Russia. The year-round staff works closely with professionals throughout the year, carefully mapping out the summer's plans, goals, and curriculum so that each student's summer experience is as fun, educational, and inspiring as possible.

About Exploration Summer Programs

Exploration Summer Programs (http://www.explo.org) creates a dynamic environment of intellectual inquiry, responsible decision making and spirited adventure. Based in Norwood, MA, the Exploration curriculum allows students to investigate subjects they are not likely to encounter during the school year. Courses are not for credit and ungraded. More than 400 courses and mini-courses are offered each session. Exploration has more than 50,000 alumni. Exploration Summer Programs is operated by Exploration School, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) educational organization.

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SOURCE Exploration Summer Programs