Zoology Students Get Firsthand Experience at Memphis Zoo

Through upper school science teacher Robert Lofton’s zoology class, our girls learn to examine animals like scientists. They create bug boxes, dissect specimens, and catch fish in the Hutchison Lake; these are among many activities that help our girls gain a deeper understanding of the world around them. Our girls’ learning goes beyond the classroom with hands-on learning experiences and field trips to the Memphis Zoo, where they meet zookeepers, explore behind the scenes, and gain insights into the lives of animals.

The zoology class goes on quarterly trips to the zoo based on what they most recently studied. For example, after focusing on mammals, our girls had the special experience of petting a rhino and feeding giraffes. In conjunction with their study of invertebrates and fish, our girls saw several unique insects up close and visited the zoo’s aquarium. 

Zookeepers showed our girls a Madagascar cockroach, an African millipede, and an emperor scorpion. “That was cool because I had never seen those up close, and we learned a lot about them in class,” Kirsten Clark ’25 said. “We labeled the parts of a scorpion and talked about the way they use their pinchers compared to how they use their tails and their stinger.”

While at the aquarium, our girls observed how different fish interacted with one another. The different monitors in the aquarium sparked a lot of questions. Ella Colvett ’25 recalled noticing a monitor on the electric eel’s tank that measured how much electricity it was conducting, and she was glad she could directly ask a zookeeper about it.

Zoology students were also mesmerized by the opportunity to watch various animals get fed. For aspiring veterinarian Haley Floyd ’25, that was her favorite experience. “I loved seeing how different types of fish and other marine organisms are reactive when zookeepers feed them,” she said. “For example, the turtle took very little interest in the food, but there was one big fish that just ate everything it could.”


Watch this video for highlights from our girls’ trip to the zoo that focused on invertebrates and aquatic life.