Thanks for your interest in visiting the Los Angeles Zoo with your school group! Please read the following information before booking your field trip.

Requirements

Special discounted admission prices are available with advance reservations ONLY for California school groups, short-termed as CSG, (registered with the California Department of Education). They can enjoy 10% off.

PLEASE NOTE:

Reservation blackout dates(限制日期) may apply to all groups at certain times of the year (e.g. holidays and spring break). If your group comes on a blackout date or has not made the necessary reservations before arriving at the Zoo, your group will be charged the regular admission fees.

Docent(讲解员)-Guided Tours

Our docent guides lead educational walking tours for students and their teachers, beginning at first grade. A limited number of docent-guided tours are available. There is no additional fee for a docent-guided tour, but you must book your tour at least two weeks in advance. Do not assume you have a guided tour booked until you have received a confirmation number and packet from the Los Angeles Zoo. On the day of your field trip, your group will need to arrive at least 30 minutes before the confirmed start time of your tour to check in. Make sure to tell Zoo staff upon your arrival that your group has a docent-guided tour. If you are more than 15 minutes late for your tour, it may be canceled.

Maximum number: 150 participants Ages: K-12

Regular Pricing: $5 per student, 1 teacher per 10 students is included, $5 per additional teacher

In Takoma Park, Maryland, in suburban Washington, people, adults or students, lined up at a pay phone outside a restaurant several times a week.

“Once I put the phone out there, it just took off,” said David Schulman, a Takoma Park violinist who created the Bird Calls Phone. Listeners push 1 to hear a yellow-crowned night heron (夜鹭), 7 to hear a pileated (红冠) woodpecker’s call and 9 for the distinct scream of a red-tailed hawk. Instructions about how to use the phone are in three languages: English, Spanish and Amharic — a reflection of Takoma Park’s Ethiopian community. In all, 10 birds native to the Takoma Park area are featured.

In addition to being fun, listening to Bird songs can reduce stress and anxiety, studies show. Even hearing recordings of birds can relieve negative emotions.

After noticing an abandoned, nonworking pay phone in town, Schulman wondered if he could turn it into something appealing. He said, “I really like the old technology of just picking up a receiver, pressing one button and having something happen.” Schulman thought bringing birds sounds to the abandoned phone was a way to add a bit of nature to the neighborhood.

Takoma Park city officials agreed, and they budgeted $5, 000 to complete the project. Schulman reached out to The McCaulay Library in Ithaca, New York, which agreed to send him a few dozen recordings of native birds. He then managed to gain the help of software engineer and artist Branden Hall to rewire the phone to play different bird calls. Schulman said he persuaded several of his friends to record short descriptions of each bird to go with the calls.

“One thing I like about the Bird Calls Phone is that it’s the opposite of a loud broadcast,” Schulman said. “Only one person can listen at a time, and each person will take away their own unique experience.”

These days, I walk down the steps leading toward the south end of the All England Club in Wimbledon, and still look for the Crow’s Nest, a small green observation tower with an outer ladder that I used to climb on for a wide view of the grounds, but which has since been knocked down.

The Crow’s Nest was a particularly useful point, because it allowed a tennis writer to keep track

Twenty-seven years later, the press room has touch screens that allow us to watch live videos from any court, and even go back to watch key moments in key matches long after they have finished. You could cover Wimbledon without leaving your seat. But that is a bit like spending all your time ordering room service and looking up fun facts on Wikipedia.

More than at any other tennis tournament, there is also an appetite for stories that deal with the setting, the history and the traditions.

If they change the price of the fish tacos (鱼肉卷饼) at the United States Open, it’s not a story. If they change the price of the strawberries and cream, the signature treat at Wimbledon. It’s time to email your editor using capital letters.

The new retractable (可伸缩的) roof was put in place in 2009. Until then, you always had to have a rainy-day story in your notebook because there were no guarantees any matches would be played. Now tennis is a sure thing on Centre Court, which has made tennis reporters a bit less creative. But at least it guarantees us daily access to the most atmospheric place in the sport.

So much has changed, but Centre Court remains true to its original spirit: more a theater than a stadium. Catching that feeling is part of covering Wimbledon, too.