Point Loma Nazarene University education majors took a day trip to the San Diego Zoo on March 1, 2025. This trip was hosted by the Student California Teachers Association (SCTA), an organization on campus that hosts events for education majors.
Students within this department, and their friends outside of it, were offered tickets discounted to $20 per person. Many took advantage of this discount, as students began congregating outside of the zoo’s gates at 8 a.m. that Saturday morning, filling up every inch of available space on the sidewalk.
Students were led to the side gate after checking in, where the crowd filtered through the small turnstiles to be the first people inside the relatively empty zoo. From there until the end of the day, they were free to do whatever they wanted and explore any exhibit at any time.
Bella Rulon, a third-year education major and president of the SCTA, helped coordinate and plan this event with the other officers.
“My role included talking to the zoo about tickets, marketing the event on Instagram, making sure we had all the wristbands and distributing jobs,” Rulon said in an email interview. “The zoo is SCTA’s biggest annual event, so the awesome officers of the past were kind enough to give tips and tricks on how to successfully plan the event.”
One popular exhibit for the students in attendance was the pandas, which were located on the other side of the park from the entrance and held a line that had guests waiting for up to one hour. The pandas, named Yun Chuan and Xin Bao, entertained the guests as they climbed up makeshift platforms and ate bamboo.
The popularity of these pandas did not go unnoticed by Saturday’s crowd, as these were the first pandas in 21 years to enter the United States this past August, according to an article by the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. Allie Nagel, a first-year education major, got her group tickets to skip the line and see the desired exhibit sooner.
“I love going to the zoo back home in Denver,” Nagel, a Colorado native, said. “But they don’t have pandas there, so it’s always a treat when I get to go to the San Diego Zoo and see the panda bears.”
Another popular attraction for the students was the gondola toward the left side of the park. Some in attendance, including first-year nursing major Mael Stelma, had never ridden inside of one before and sought out this experience early on in the day. The gondola’s route stretched across the park, giving the people in attendance a faster way to travel to the polar bear exhibit.
“I’ve never been on one before,” Stelma said, “so it was really fun to ride it with my friends, especially the ones who had already ridden in one.”
The SCTA’s goal is to create a community with students passionate about education, according to their Instagram @plnu_stca. For Rulon, being able to cultivate a space for this department and seeing them enjoy the trip was enough for her and her team, she said.
“I hope that the students in the education department gained community from this event,” Rulon said. “I think it’s awesome how large a group came, and how many connections were made in sharing rides or just walking around the park together.”
Madison Lasus 
Abbey Wicks