Zoology: Cool Women Who Work With Animals

By Jennifer Swanson and Lena Chandhok

Love to work with animals? Want to study them in the wild? Wish you could become a zookeeper? Become a zoologist! Zoology is the study of everything having to do with animals, including how and why they look, act, and behave in their environments and with other animals. As a zoologist, you might go on an expedition to Africa to study how elephants solve problems. You could take care of tigers at a zoo. You might even study how climate change can affect underwater creatures.

In Zoology: Cool Women Who Work With Animals, readers ages 9 to 12 are inspired by stories of women who have made great strides in a field that requires commitment, courage, and creativity to pursue. Many of you have heard of the famous zoologists Charles Darwin, Jack Hanna, and Steve Irwin, but do you know Terri Irwin, Dian Fossey, and Rachel Carson? For many decades, female zoologists have been defining the field by advancing the global environmental movement while researching and advocating for all species of animals. Zoology: Cool Women Who Work With Animals introduces readers to three women in the field of zoology who are making an impact and inspiring the next generation of zoologists. Stephanie Kim is a graduate student in Canada studying different species of birds. Elise Newman works as a zookeeper at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. Dr. Erin Seney is a sea turtle researcher with the University of Central Florida.
Nomad Press books in the Girls in Science series supply a bridge between girls’ interests and their potential futures by investigating science careers and introducing women who have succeeded in science. Compelling stories of real-life zoologists provide readers with role models that they can look toward as examples of success. Zoology: Cool Women Who Work With Animals uses primary sources, essential questions, and knowledge connections to encourage both boys and girls to explore the animal world while being inspired to ask what role they might play in the field of zoology.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nomad Press
• Release date: Apr 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781619305038

Jennifer Swanson

Jennifer Swanson is the author of 45+ nonfiction books for kids. Her passion for science and technology resonates in all her books and her work has won multiple awards including a Green Earth Book Honor Award, three Florida Book Awards, California Reading Association awards, a Parent's Choice Gold award, and a 2021 Kirkus Best Books Award. Jennifer is an accomplished speaker at events and schools around the country, the Highlights Foundation, the National NSTA conferences, the World Science Festival in NYC, and the Library of Congress' National Book Festival. She lives in Jacksonville with her husband and two dogs.

Book preview

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How to Use This Book

In this book you’ll find a few different ways to explore the topic of women in zoology.

The essential questions in each Ask & Answer box encourage you to think further. You probably won’t find the answers to these questions in the text, and sometimes there are no right or wrong answers! Instead, these questions are here to help you think more deeply about what you’re reading and how the material connects to your own life.

There’s a lot of new vocabulary in this book! Can you figure out a word’s meaning from the paragraph? Look in the glossary in the back of the book to find the definitions of words you don’t know.

Are you interested in what women have to say about zoology? You’ll find quotes from women who are professionals in the zoology field. You can learn a lot by listening to people who have worked hard to succeed!

Primary sources come from people who were eyewitnesses to events. They might write about the event, take pictures, or record the event for radio or video. Why are primary sources important?

Use a QR code reader app on your tablet or other device to find online primary sources. You can find a list of URLs on the Resources page. If the QR code doesn’t work, try searching the Internet with the Keyword Prompts to find other helpful sources.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Let’s Explore Zoology

CHAPTER 1

Observing Animals

CHAPTER 2

Stephanie Kim

CHAPTER 3

Elise Newman

CHAPTER 4

Erin Seney

Timeline • Essential Questions • Glossary • Resources • Index

INTRODUCTION

Let’s Explore Zoology

Animals are everywhere. You can find them high in the sky, up in a tree, running through the forest, swimming deep in the ocean, and burrowed far under the dirt. They swim, crawl, fly, scoot, run, walk, and soar. Maybe you’ve tracked ants as they made a line across the sidewalk or followed the footprints of a rabbit or fox into the wilderness. Perhaps you’ve watched animals as they live and interact in a zoo.

Imagine being the one person who is responsible for raising a baby tiger. Sound interesting? Become a zoologist!

Zoology is the study of everything having to do with animals. Zoologists examine how and why animals look, act, and behave, in their environments and with other animals. There is much to learn about animals. Sometimes, learning about animals can teach us about ourselves—the human animal!

In Zoology: Cool Women Who Work with Animals, you will learn about three women who have made great strides in a field that has been around for hundreds of years. These women have faced many challenges and achieved success as zoologists through hard work and determination.

Studying zoology requires commitment, courage, and patience. Sometimes, it takes days just to capture a glimpse of a new animal in the wild or to see a flock of birds fly overhead. These women have all of these qualities and use them to improve their skills.

Stephanie Kim is a graduate student at the Queen’s University Biological Station (QUBS), where she is finishing up her master’s degree in zoology. She is collecting data on the interactions and natural history of song and swamp sparrows.

On her graduate field trips, she has experiences that she will never forget. These include seeing rattlesnakes and blue-footed boobies. She has held whiskered screech owls and eaten the freshest fruits from the trees on the way to the biology station.

Elise Newman currently works at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park as a zookeeper, primarily with tigers and lions. Before moving to San Diego, California, she was a zookeeper at the Binghamton Zoo at Ross Park in New York. She worked with a variety of animals, including tigers, red pandas, and river otters. Elise has also studied in Kenya and Tanzania, tracking elephants.

I was brought up to understand Darwin’s theory of evolution. I spent hours and hours in the Natural History Museum in London looking at the descriptions of how different kinds of animals had evolved, looking at the sequence of fossil bones looking gradually more and more and more and more like the modern fossil.

—Jane Goodall,

primatologist, anthropologist, expert on chimpanzees

Erin Seney has a PhD in wildlife and fisheries