HEMBY BRIDGE — Fourth-grade students at Hemby Bridge Elementary School set up a “Questions and Answering” video conference with Barbara Baker, the president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Zoo, on Nov. 3.

After completing the animal and adaptations unit in fourth-grade science, students at Hemby Bridge were able to view a behind-the-scenes video of the Pittsburgh Zoo. The next day, those same students were able to set up a video conference through Skype to ask Baker any questions that arose after watching the video.

Students asked questions like “How do you go about training the animals” and “Do any of the animals have special needs?” Other students were more interested in Baker and asked questions that pertained to her profession, such as “What do you like about working at the zoo” and “What colleges did you attend and for how many years?”

Overall, the video conference lasted for about 30 minutes. This was Baker’s first Skype conference with students, but she now plans to use Skype more often to gather information from animal researchers while they perform research in the wild.