To check dates currently available for teleconference visits
please click here: Check
Availability.
» Reserve a date.
The Elephant Sanctuary is a member of Project DIANE,
a Diversified Information and Assistance NEtwork. The membership is
comprised of educational institutions and service organizations throughout
the state of Tennessee providing distance learning.
Teleconferencing technology is an education tool. Utilizing ISDN telephone lines in their classroom, students can take an electronic "field trip" to the Sanctuary. Images and sound are transported live, allowing students to view an elephant's daily life without causing any intrusion.
Sanctuary staff conduct the "visits," which can originate from anywhere around the world. Students learn about this free-ranging group of endangered elephants living at the nation's only natural habitat for Asian elephants.
We currently schedule teleconference visits one day per week on Thursdays,
year round, between the hours of 11:00 a.m.
- 1:00 p.m. Central Time. Pre-scheduling
is mandatory to ensure that an educator
is available for your electronic field
trip.
Each program begins with a visit to the Sanctuary's on-site office. For the first time visitor we suggest viewing our introductory video The Asian Elephant. This 7-minute video is a valuable teaching tool for students with limited exposure to this endangered species. The video is transmitted over the teleconference system. If your time is limited, or if you are a repeat visitor, we can omit the video viewing.
Through an additional camera in our elephants' habitat, students
are privy to the private lives of the elephants residing at the Sanctuary.
This non-intrusive observation allows viewers to experience natural
elephant behavior in a wild setting, and enables them to become familiar
with each elephant - her history, habits, and how moving to the sanctuary
has changed her life. These elephants represent a new age of captive-elephant
management; what they are teaching us is invaluable.
The program is flexible and can run as long as 45 minutes. The program
fee is $100.00. First-time visitors are required to conduct a systems
test call prior to their teleconference visit. The test call is included
in the fee.
To find out more information about teleconference visits please contact cathy@elephants.com.
The Latham Letter is published quarterly by The Latham Foundation which was founded in 1918 to promote respect for all life through education. In the Fall 2001 issue, Humane Education's Radical New Era, The Latham Letter features The Elephant Sanctuary's innovative use of technology to educate the masses, live, interactive, in real time, videoteleconferencing. Read the PDF file.
USN Second Graders "Talk with the Animals" (December 2001)
Second graders from University School in Nashville (USN) went on a "virtual tour" of the Elephant Sanctuary and their teacher, Scott Merrick, created a website about their visit.
A letter (May 29, 2001) from an Arizona
teacher states:
 Thank you so much for video conference today. It was even more wonderful than I had anticipated. The kids (7th & 8th graders) will never forget it and they left very committed to helping elephants.
I've been a part of MANY humane education lessons and this was the most powerful I've participated in. I'm spreading the word on humane education listservs and will show your site when I speak next year at the 4th annual humane education conference at the University of Illinois next April. Will write up an article about this too and send you a copy...sometime this summer. Will also plug your site and video conference with the US Dept. of Educ grant again...goes out to about 6000 science teachers right now I think! Thanks again. It was fantastic. The kids were so awed...never saw them so quiet! You did a very nice job telling them about Barbara also. I think it really helped them to hear how the other elephants dealt with her death.
Patty Finch
Think Tank
Arizona
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