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Program Lets Students Get A Touch Wild

Tribune photo by CHRISTINE DeLESSIO

Mercedes Lange, 11, a fifth-grader at Sand Pine Elementary, reacts to a Chilean rose-haired tarantula being put on her head Thursday during an assembly. The Wonders of Wildlife program is put on by the Great Exploration Children's Museum of St. Petersburg and is taught by Larry Venson.

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By RONNIE BLAIR

rblair@tampatrib.com

Published: December 12, 2008

WESLEY CHAPEL - Even Principal Ginny Yanson admitted she was a bit taken aback to stroll into the Sand Pine Elementary cafeteria Thursday morning and see a tarantula on a student's head.

Everyone - principals included - could breathe easy, though. Larry Venson of the Great Explorations Children's Museum in St. Petersburg knew what he was doing as he treated the Sand Pine students to a program called Wonders of Wildlife.

"I wouldn't bring out any animals that would hurt you," Venson told the children.

Among the creatures he showed off: an African scorpion, a Vietnamese centipede, a box turtle, a blue-tongued skink, a bearded dragon, a corn snake and a baby ball python.

"If you are cool and calm, most of the time the animals will be cool and calm," he said.

Fifth-graders Mercedes Lange, 11, and Marc Francois, 11, volunteered to let Venson place a Chilean rose-haired tarantula - not deadly despite its gruesome appearance - on their heads.

Marc described it as ticklish.

Venson visits schools in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties and a portion of Pasco as part of the museum's creative education and outreach effort. He has been doing such presentations for 15 years.

"The first years were the learning ones," he said. "You never would have told me I would have been holding spiders, snakes and things."

The program, which was presented twice Thursday and will be repeated today, was sponsored by the PTA.

Reporter Ronnie Blair can be reached at (813) 948-4218.

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