Great Ape Trust of Iowa is encouraging Iowa science educators and their students to use www.GreatApeTrust.org as a classroom resource.

Des Moines, Iowa – October 31, 2008 – Great Ape Trust of Iowa unveiled a new electronic study guide for Iowa science educators during fall conference the Iowa Science Teachers Section of the Iowa Academy of Science, held Oct. 23 in Des Moines. The guide will be distributed monthly to interested Iowa teachers as part of Great Ape Trust’s commitment to education.

Questions students can answer by exploring Great Ape Trust’s award-winning Web site, www.GreatApeTrust.org, are posed in the study guide, a companion piece to The Trust’s monthly e-newsletter, which is distributed to 9,000 subscribers each month. With hyperlinks pointing students to news releases, videos, news articles and other Web site elements they will find scientifically interesting, the study guide is designed as an interactive learning tool that also gives students computer-based research skills. The study guide also highlights Great Ape Trust’s academic partnerships, which are national and international in scope.

“We have a stake in improving science literacy in Iowa,” said Great Ape Trust Operations Director Jim Aipperspach. “By exposing students to the caliber of research occurring at Great Ape Trust, we are letting them know that interesting scientific careers are available in Iowa, and they don’t have to leave the state in order to pursue them.”

Great Ape Trust’s four-part mission includes providing unique educational experiences about great apes, along with studying their intelligence, providing them an honorable life and advancing the conservation of great apes. Great Ape Academy was developed in 2007 as part of The Trust’s strategy to meet its commitment to education. After partnering with Des Moines Public Schools in The Academy’s inaugural year, Great Ape Trust invited 100 Iowa science teachers to collaborate on the best way to present The Trust’s mission to students of all ages and further development of Great Ape Academy.

The invitation generated keen interest among teachers, who were scheduled to meet on Great Ape Trust’s 230-acre southeast Des Moines campus in September and October. The study guide was developed after significant flooding in June forced The Trust to delay the workshops until a date to be announced in 2009. In the meantime, the study guide is designed to familiarize Iowa science teachers with Great Ape Trust and its value as a scientific resource for students of all ages.

To receive a copy of the study guide, please e-mail Beth Dalbey, communications editor, at bdalbey@greatapetrust.org.

At the ISTS conference, teachers who stopped by Great Ape Trust’s exhibit received copies of a 23-minute video that takes viewers inside the bonobo and orangutan laboratories to get a peek at groundbreaking scientific research. The video also provides an overview of Great Ape Trust’s mission for education, conservation and ape well-being.

The video also airs on Mediacom DMTV-7 in Des Moines at 3 p.m. Mondays and at 11:30 a.m. on Saturdays. To view it on Great Ape Trust’s Web site, click here.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Great Ape Trust of Iowa is a scientific research facility in Des Moines dedicated to understanding the origins and future of culture, language, tools and intelligence.  When completed, it will be the largest great ape facility in North America and one of the first worldwide to include all four types of great ape – bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans – for noninvasive interdisciplinary studies of their cognitive and communicative capabilities.  Great Ape Trust is dedicated to providing sanctuary and an honorable life for great apes, studying the intelligence of great apes, advancing conservation of great apes and providing a unique educational experience about great apes.