Mike Loomis, chief veterinarian at the N.C. Zoo, faced death while researching elephants in Cameroon.
After tracking a herd for hours in Nki National Park three years ago, his team caught up to the animals and prepared to dart a few and fit them with radio collars. But a female elephant surprised Loomis and mock charged him from about 40 feet away. He raised his dart rifle, aimed down the barrel and waited for a clear shot at her shoulder.
He pulled the trigger. The rifle misfired, and the 6,000-pound animal charged with intention. He dove behind a large tree, but she pummeled him with her tusks while standing on his right foot.
"It actually took several hours before what had happened hit me. It was a very close call," Loomis said, recalling the incident over the phone from Yaoundé, Cameroon. "We were a three-day's hike from the nearest road. Had I been seriously injured, it would have taken days to get me to medical help."
Undaunted, Loomis traveled back to Cameroon last month, doing field work with the World Wildlife Fund and reporting in to Field Trip Earth, a Web site hatched by the N.C. Zoological Society.
Field Trip Earth relies on field researchers such as Loomis and uses conservation science as a platform for teaching children about everything from biology to language arts, using destinations from Antarctica to Zambia. It targets K-12 students and their teachers.
More than 100 scientists and researchers have contributed articles, photos and video to the site. About 47 species are showcased through virtual "field trips" and "field reports," and dozens more are included in discussions.
For the "Elephants of Cameroon" field trip, Loomis writes a daily diary of field notes on the site during his month-long field sessions in Africa each year. He uploads photos and data generated from the radio collars he and his team fit onto elephants, and he has been known to call in to classrooms for interviews from the top of Mount Cameroon.
"Elephants encompass all of the major issues facing conservation, and so they are a natural fit for Field Trip Earth," Loomis said. "There are conflicts over natural resources where elephants and people compete for land, space, food and water. But elephants are also targets of human exploitation; they are killed illegally for ivory and for the bush meat trade."
Mark MacAllister, the N.C. Zoological Society's online learning projects coordinator and creator of Field Trip Earth, said teachers can use the site's raw materials for courses including biology, geography, social studies and even language arts.
"People were first finding us when they were searching for animal pictures," MacAllister said. "But then we were getting all these requests from kids asking, 'How can I be a scientist when I grow up?' or 'What do I need to do to have a job like this?' and we realized we could do a lot more with it."
Field Trip Earth turns 8 years old this month. Though MacAllister does not track the number of students, teachers or schools that use the site, he does know that traffic has grown from 69,611 visits in 2003 to 198,965 visits last year. Hits trickle in from all over the globe.
It is listed on more than 3,700 referral sites for online education. The American Association of School Librarians lauded it as one of 21 "landmark" Web sites, ranking it right up there with Google Earth, NASA and Discovery Education.
But don't sweat it if you have never heard of Field Trip Earth - the N.C. Zoological Society does little to promote it.
"Teachers are excellent hunter-gatherers," MacAllister said. "They have a way of finding what they need."
Dawn Streets, a seventh-grade social studies teacher at Perry Harrison School in Pittsboro, learned about Field Trip Earth through another teacher at her school. She said she uses it to teach about natural resources conflicts. After leading students through the site, she asks questions such as, "How do elephant migration patterns play into natural resource conflicts with people?" and "How might the construction of reservoirs and dams affect the elephants' water supply?"
So what do her students think of the Web site?
"The kids are engaged in it," Streets said. "If anything, they'd want it to be more interactive." She cited more video or real-time interactive features as ways to improve it, and said it's one of only a few online tools she uses in her classroom.
In Virginia Beach, Va., third-grade gifted resources teacher Heather Schweitzer is teaching her students about the red wolf, an endangered species showcased on the site. North Carolina is home to the world's only wild population of red wolves.
MacAllister helped Schweitzer devise a mock scenario for the students, telling them that the wolves' reintroduction area was full and they needed to help find a new place suitable for restoring more red wolves.
"We are also focusing on economic situations, so the ultimate placement for these animals must also fit within the economic needs of the chosen area," Schweitzer said. "The students are studying habitats, prey and predator relationships and communities."
Her students have used the site, talked over video-Skype with MacAllister and watched videos on red wolves, she said.
But MacAllister says he does not want children to learn only about "charismatic megafauna," such as wolves and elephants. Field Trip Earth also features invertebrates, such as the American burying beetle, and he's working with pharmacist Amy Greeson of Thomasville, who seeks to save medicinal plants and natural substances with pharmaceutical applications.
Russ Williams, executive director of the N.C. Zoological Society, said there is no shortage of topics in the natural world that can be used on Field Trip Earth, and they are constantly expanding their content.
"It's about teaching our kids about the natural world around us," he said. "Kids have an ingrained interest in nature, so it's a good fit."
