The Dallas Zoo

      I arrived at the Dallas zoo after a long trek from Arkansas and found a behemoth of a zoo waiting for me.  I would find it had an education department to match.

            That morning I met up with a photographer for the Dallas Zoo, who gave me a tour and allowed me to film throughout the zoo. I saw some of the ways they integrated education on-grounds, such as the Nature Exchange (a program that allowed children to trade in things found in nature for points towards other natural relics) and Discovery House (a small house-style exhibit with live animal demos) within the Children’s Zoo.

I found this little baby viper in the reptile nursery.

            The Dallas Zoo had education components everywhere, and though its department was rather large, it was also segmented. An overarching category called Education and Interpretation included the children’s zoo, graphics department, Wilds of Africa Interpretation (a large immersive exhibit with stations for interpretation such as giraffe feedings), Outreach Departments including special events, outreach shows, and PR, and finally Education ‘Proper’ which ran on site programs such as classes and overnights. While throughout the trip I found many education departments were leaned on for this kind of work, few had the official designation and distinct separations of employees as Dallas had. They all answered to a single director and seemed to be in good communication with one another.

            It seemed that the segmentation in Dallas led to great specialization. Their outreach program had more animals than usual, 6 to 8 for a 45-minute session,  perhaps because of Outreach being a separate department. Outreach also oversaw all education animals and other programs had to request them from Outreach, which I found happened in other zoos with large outreach animal programs. Education proper had staff fully devoted to handling reservations. There were also many outside resources and partnerships that education utilized, such as working within a network of local informal educators. Dallas was one of the largest cities I visited, and I could feel its need to serve such a huge volume of people. To me, this grouping looked to help the Dallas Zoo run like an efficient machine.

            The Dallas Zoo had a few unique programs I wanted to spotlight. The first was their youth volunteer program, which started at one of the youngest ages I’d seen: 11 and 12. Without parents these kids could come to the zoo and volunteer as Junior Zookeepers. As a former teen volunteer myself, volunteer programs have always been a love of mine and it was interesting to see a zoo running such a young volunteer program when many zoos don’t have one for anyone under 18. Another program was their Frog Club, a family program in which families train to identify and track frog calls. The data families collect are sent to Texas Park and Wildlife to help with frog conservation.

            Overall, visiting the Dallas Zoo was my first introduction into the sectioning of education departments, something I’d encounter at many of the zoos after it. I saw that understanding organizational structure is an important step into gaining insight on how an education department ran. The small details can be a thrill to learn about, but Dallas helped me see the big picture.

Dallas Zoo Basics Overview:

• Number of employees: ~45 (seasonal fluctuation)
• Funding: Private, with some building/land subsidies from city
• Facilities: portable classrooms and buildings off site of zoo proper, education animal holdings, stage for animal shows, classrooms throughout zoo, utilize children’s zoo in some programming.
• Education/program animals: Yes. Coordinated through outreach program.
• Volunteers: Yes. Teens and adults.