One of the new classes that has been implemented this year at Hempfield Area High School is Zoology taught by Mr. Turner. Only open to Juniors and Seniors, Zoology is a course that according to Mr. Turner, allows students to “see the progression and complexity of organisms, from the most simple, to animals like us”.
With this new class comes a new experience all together as Mr. Turner’s pet snake Reggie joins the class. They named him after the snake from The original Indiana Jones movie who scares the adventurer but is in reality, a beloved pet. Reggie is “two years old” and “thirty-nine inches long” and was given to Mr. Turner as a “birthday present”.
Most people are afraid of snakes, but Mr. Turner assures that once you’re more “educated about something, it tends to be a lot less scary”.
The Zoology course was brought to Hempfield because Mr. Turner thinks that “with people focused on the Keystone Testing, the fun stuff [of biology] gets lost”. Reggie’s part in the classroom is to show students that he’s not a “scary slimy beast,” and that snakes have a lot of “benefits to nature”.
The number one teaching goal Mr. Turner wants to reach is “just get kids to become naturalists” and “appreciate what’s out there”. He believes that once the students do this, they’ll want to “respect it and conserve it”.
The new class seems to be a success, and with many students being able to pet Reggie, most come to realize that “he’s not this evil beast trying to kill Harry Potter”.
