Students become botanists for a day at the local zoo

The animal division of Volunteer UCF took their first trip to the zoo and became botanists for the day to help maintain the environment for the zoo's wildlife.

"We have a very diverse group of people," Chelsea Balkam, director of the animal unit of VUCF, said. "Everyone is doing different majors, studying different things, but just love animals."

The 10 young men and women arrived at the Central Florida Zoo on Saturday morning ready to pick plants, equipped with gloves, water bottles, bug spray and activewear perfect for the summer weather.

Steve DeCresie, the park's senior horticulturist of seven years, led the way, giving a tour of the zoo and what he called a "crash course" in botany.

"This will take a lot of man and woman power," DeCresie said. "By the [end], you'll be wet, gross and somewhat muddy."

The VUCF group's first task: to weed and spread pine straw in a dragonfly garden.

"Your mission, should you decide to accept it. Just make dragonfly pond look beautiful," DeCresie said.

The group followed DeCresie to the pond, who explained the process that focused primarily on ecology, but also hydrology, land use, some biology and zoology aspects.

The pond system has been there since 2005 and is part of a farm-water filtration system, which includes a pipe that connects to the St. John's River. DeCresie takes care of the 117 acres of swampland in the zoo.

DeCresie gave the students a lesson on how to identify the wide variety of vegetation they would be picking, such as phasey bean, dog fennel and bidens alba.

Balkam was up to the task, described by DeCresie as a "scavenger hunt."

"I just love being outside," she said.

Balkam said that she was satisfied with the number of people who participated.

"I'm like bubbling over with happiness," she said. "I only thought three people were going to come, so I'm really happy ... It's more than I expected, because it's a Saturday morning and it's the summer, so I didn't expect a lot of people."

Max Lang, a senior pre-med major, volunteered for the first time, seeking out a Saturday morning activity.

"It just seems kind of interesting to do," Lang said. "Something different than my ordinary Saturday. Get to help out the zoo, so that always helps. And I like the bio aspects, it goes into my niche of things that seem interesting."

DeCresie said that he enjoyed getting people in the mud and was pleased with that the amount of students who attended.

"This group is perfect for dragonfly pond," DeCresie said. "I can't train really small kids, who sometimes just start pulling anything, so it's nice when I get older teenagers, college students and adults, that's when we usually do more difficult scavenger hunts."

They reached their goal two hours after they started. Students filled four bags of food while the staff took them to animals such as camels, kangaroos and tortoises, all of which, DeCresie said, love the bidens and grasses. He said it's a special treat for them because the plants surrounding the pond usually only get picked at the end of summer because that is when the plants grow most and need to be pampered for the fall.

After a lunch break, the group laid the pine grass at the dragonfly pond, following which Decresie declared the group's task as "mission accomplished."

Terri Clark, the zoo's community resource manager, expressed the staff's gratitude for the large number of volunteers.

"We can't do it without you guys," Clark said. "We are just a small staff, a small nonprofit, so we have limited staff. So for us to do everything that needs to get done, we cannot do it without volunteers. So we kiss the feet that you walk on. We are just so appreciative."

Visit http://www.vucf.getinvolveducf.com, for more information about Volunteer UCF.