34 



Annals of the Smithsonian Institution 1999 



in the Discovery Center, and to our curricula publications 

 than ever before. We reached out to two traditionally under- 

 served constituent groups: pre-kindergarten students and the 

 self-guided visitor. For pre-kindergarten children (ages 2-4), 

 we developed a fanciful story-tour entitled "Let's Deliver 

 Mail." Using a felt storyboard, students follow the mail de- 

 livery adventures of three characters (a Little Letter, a Pretty 

 Postcard, and a Big Package). They learn about a letter car- 

 rier's job, don mailbags to pick up and deliver mail to 

 Owney the Dog in the museum's atrium. To serve self- 

 guided visitors, we created colorful, laminated self-guides 

 that craftily invite the visitor to learn in every gallery. 



The Education Department's other highlights for the year 

 included continuing docent training classes who in turn, 

 conducted literally thousands of tours for the public. The 

 Education Department developed and hosted more than 20 

 engaging and interactive programs and lectures for visitors 

 covering a wide range of postal history and philately. A new 

 style of hands-on Discovery Center day was created with 

 monthly themes, drawing an average of 50 visitors each two- 

 hour session. Among the many public program offerings of 

 the Education Department were a lecture and slide presenta- 

 tion about the "Letters of Van Gogh" in January and the 

 "Boys and Girls Club Absolutely Incredible Kids Day" in 

 March where visitors wrote letters to homeless children that 

 were particularly touching. 



The Graceful Envelope Contest enjoyed another successful 

 year with Nature as the contest theme for Fiscal Year 1999. 

 Seventy-five winning envelopes were selected from the en- 

 tries and displayed in a special exhibition from May to 

 October. Similarly, the second Folk Art Mailbox Contest at- 

 tracted many entries with photographs of five winning 

 mailboxes displayed in the museum. 



The Education Department continued its strong outreach 

 efforts by distriburing the "Classroom in a Can Lesson One: 

 Cuneiform" to more than 1,000 Title 1 schools nationwide. 

 In addition, the demand for Education Department publica- 

 tions remained constant. The Education Department 

 distributed 1,603 Postal Pack for Elementary Students, 542 Pen 

 Friends, 611 Secondary School Postal Packs, and 1 ,000 Letters 

 Prom Home publications. 



National Zoological Park 



Michael H. Robinson, Director 



The mission of the National Zoo, established by Congress in 

 1889 as a Smithsonian bureau, is to encourage the advance- 

 ment of science and the education and recreation of the 

 people. The Zoo is carrying its founders' visions into the new 

 Millennium and positioning itself to respond to the looming 

 biodiversity crisis. 



When Director Michael Robinson arrived in 1984, he en- 

 visioned transforming the Zoo into a "biopark," where basic 

 biology and conservation concepts could be explained by 

 drawing examples from the best elements of zoos, botanic 



gardens, and natural hisrory museums. He also saw an op- 

 portunity to cross-reference orher Smithsonian museums 

 where exhibits relate to themes one might encounter at the 

 Zoo. Now, Robinson's concept is embodied in many popular 

 exhibits, including the recently opened American Prairie. 



American Prairie Exhibit Opens 



American Prairie, located along Olmsted Walk, opened on 

 July 8. Two bison, numerous prairie dogs, and native plants 

 introduce the prairie's delicate ecological system. Reflecting 

 the prairie theme, the bison shelter is reminiscent of the 

 Great Plain's sod-roofed barns. 



Montali Research 



An arricle by Dr. Richard Montali, chief of the National 

 Zoo's pathology department, and Dr. Laura Richman, Johns 

 Hopkins School of Medicine, was published in rhe February 

 19, 1999, issue of Science. The article explained how the 

 death of Kumari, the National Zoo's Asian elephant calf, led 

 them to discover two new herpesviruses believed responsible 

 for at least ten Asian and African elephant calves' deaths in 

 North America since 1983. It also points to solutions for 

 successfully treating calves that contract the viruses. Thanks 

 to Montali's and Richman's work, veterinarians successfully 

 treated a similar infection using the drug famciclovir on a 

 calf at a zoo in Springfield, Missouri. 



Frog Fungus Identified 



The Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation published a re- 

 port by Don Nichols, NZP pathologist, describing an 

 unusual skin disease he first observed in 1991 in a research 

 colony of California toads. Nichols later found similar cases in 

 two of the Zoo's White's tree frogs and an ornate horned frog. 

 He has also seen the disease in many of the Zoo's young poi- 

 son arrow frogs and in wild frogs from Arizona to Quebec. 



Joyce Longcore, a world expert on fungi, identified the 

 unique organism causing the disease as an aquatic fungus in 

 the phylum Chytridiomycetes — the only fungus group rhat 

 produces spores with flagella. In Mycologia, Longcore and 

 Nichols named this new genus and species Batrachochytrium 

 dendrobatidis. 



Nichols is now certain that the organism is responsible for 

 the disease. He and Zoo biologist Elaine Lamirande nore 

 that fungal spores are attracted to keratin, present in frog 

 skin and in the mouth of tadpoles, and that the fungal cul- 

 tures prefer temperatures below 26° C. Nichols and 

 Lamirande hope these clues will help develop techniques to 

 combat the disease. 



ELIPSE 



The Zoo and its Conservation and Research Center, along 

 with the National Museum of Natural History and the 

 Smithsonian Environmenral Research Center, have collabo- 

 rated with the Institute for Conservation Biology to bring 

 the Smithsonian's resources ro rhe Miami Latino community. 



