Read about the Smithsonian-Mason Semester
- July 14, 2022
In September 2009, during a behind-the-scenes tour of the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, D.C., hippo keeper John “J. T.” Taylor brought out a hippo skull to show students participating in the Smithsonian-Mason Semester. During the same visit, the students had the opportunity to feed Happy, a 5,500-pound Nile hippopotamus.
In 2000, Mason and the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoo and Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) joined forces to educate the next generation of conservation leaders. The Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation was created.
During the Smithsonian-Mason Semester, students live at SCBI's 3,200-acre campus in Front Royal, Virginia, and learn directly from prominent conservation practitioners and Smithsonian scientists as they engage in hands-on research that’s critical to saving endangered species and preserving biodiversity.
Mason is one of the few universities to partner with the Smithsonian Institution in this way.
Read more about the early years of the Smithsonian-Mason Semester in the Mason Spirit magazine.
Photo credit: Evan Cantwell/Creative Services