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How do you regulate Top: For their Capstone Project, Loyola computer engineering students worked
noise and sound? with Kanzia to design and implement a prototype of a Wi-Fi datalogger for
remote monitoring of temperature and relative humidity in zoo exhibits.
We do studies on animal Bottom: Kanzia enjoyed teaching a Zoo Lab water-quality class at Brookfield
behavior to come up with Zoo. Here, he shows children how to identify macroinvertebrates—which
guidelines for sound levels in include insects, snails, mussels, and worms. The presence of these
the park. For example, we want creatures can tell the children about the condition of the water.
people to have a good time during our Summer Nights concerts,
but the animals can be bothered by it. In 2013, the stage was How does someone get into this field?
between PACHYDERM and TROPIC WORLD, so we did a
study and watched our gorillas’ behavior at different sound levels. Get valuable, real-world experience. In the late 1990s, I was
attending UIC, working toward a bachelor’s in biology.
We have a stand-alone sound-level datalogger and a mobile I volunteered my Monday afternoons at the John G. Shedd
USB sound-monitoring system. I point a USB microphone in the Aquarium to process water samples for the oceanarium.
direction of the sound and I see a graphical representation of its When Shedd had a part-time job opening, I applied and got a
frequency and decibel level on my tablet. The animals were okay job training new volunteers in the water-quality lab where I had
when the music was about 90 to 95 decibels—about equivalent to been working.
standing on 1st Ave. with traffic going by. If the music got louder
than that, we’d have the sound engineer turn the sound down. By 2005, I was running the day-to-day operations of the
water-quality lab under the supervision of Allen LaPointe, Shedd’s
We worked with our Events staff to help us monitor sound director of environmental quality. In 2006, I left Shedd to start my
levels during events. We showed them a free smart phone app own environmental quality program here.
(NIOSH Sound Level Meter) that they can use to measure the
decibel level of the sound. About 8 to 10 seniors from Loyola’s engineering department
come through every year. They work on their capstone projects
What keeps you up at night? here and some of the stuff they do is incredible.

It’s mostly the aquatic stuff, primarily the fish in THE LIVING Environmental quality internships are available through the
COAST. Other exhibits also have fish tanks. If you change the College and High School Internship Program. [See pages 36 and
temperature 10 degrees at GREAT BEAR WILDERNESS or 41, or go to CZS.org for information about this program, a part of
TROPIC WORLD, the animals can go into their holding areas the King Conservation Leadership Academy.] n
or move to different spots. But there’s no holding area in a fish
tank. If the temperature changes 10 degrees in a day, the fish can
become stressed, ill, or even die. Our maximum recommended
temperature change is 2 degrees a day.

I have stand-alone dataloggers for temperature, relative
humidity, light intensity, sound, and water quality. However, those
dataloggers only collect data and don’t notify us if there’s an issue.

I’ve got 24-hour surveillance systems for water quality.
They collect and log data, compare the data points to high- and
low-alarm level values. Having these 24-hour surveillance systems
online helps me sleep a little better because if something like
an equipment malfunction does happen, I know I will get a
notification and I can respond.

We don’t have anything like that for temperature and humidity
right now. But we are working on a temp/humidity monitoring
and alarming system through a partnership with Loyola’s
Department of Engineering.

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