This is one of the gerbils in their new home. The other two are behind the logs taking a nap.

Three gerbils were recently added to the Zero-K program and will soon be navigating a maze created by Mikah Mittleider, Joey Scribner, and Daniel Van Horn. These gerbils were brought to their new home on Monday, January 9th. 

Mr. Ed Sieck is the head of Zero-K and he helps students perform tasks that may not be done on a regular basis. Daniel Van Horn is in charge of creating this project. During this project, they will learn about gerbil characteristics and general habits. While this is all going on the gerbils are getting used to being in their new home and settling in. 

“It went back a few years and was originally meant to be for a pet snake,” said Mikah Mittleider. “The box ended up being used for some plants Joey grew and just now turned into a gerbil lab.” 

So because this project has been changed several times there were many different ideas for this project. This project could have been for a snake at one point and at another point, it was being used for some plants that Joey grew. 

“I figured it was going to be a fun project from the very start, but now that the gerbils and here and 'part 2' of the project is now in place, it has for sure been fun. Cleaning, preparing, planning, researching, and finally "installing" the gerbils into their new home, it has been a fun project,” said Van Horn.

Van Horn is very excited for this project to be put into place and to start getting more in-depth into the entire project. Putting the project together has sure been fun for them all and they will soon be having a better time when they are trying to train the gerbils to navigate through a maze. 

“Personally I’m excited to have “lab rats” so to speak so we can build small enclosures and run fundamental harmless experiments like mazes or obstacle courses,” said Mikah Mittleider. 

This project will be an interesting one considering there are now “lab rats” in our library