Zoo Boise

Getting to Zoo Boise was an adventure all its own – I’d never been to the Pacific Northwest, and seeing the mountains of Boise after driving through the deserts of Utah was a welcome view.

            Zoo Boise is in the heart of downtown Boise and nestled in the larger Julia Davis Park. It was a smaller zoo than some of the ones I visited throughout the trip, but it definitely utilized all of its space and offered a wide range of exhibits. I could see easily how the zoo was a classroom for the education department.

            Education at Zoo Boise was a lot like the zoo: it wasn’t massive but it was very multi-faceted. A pre-school program designed solely by Zoo Boise allowed for children aged three to five to be introduced to zoo animals. The animal artifacts used in programs weren’t just there as a supplement, they had fact sheets attached which included ‘Teachable Concepts’ about the artifact and connected them to zoo animals on exhibit. Their volunteer program included opportunities for teens and adults. The teen program was both an opportunity to teach the public and to educate the teens on zoo topics or job skills. Adult volunteers could be Naturalists educating at immersive exhibits or working as animal care volunteers. The summer camps were one of their most complex programs, with wide ranges of subjects and ages served. They were also valued as a revenue generator.

            Zoo Boise is a public-private zoo, funded both by the city and a private non-profit. The city of Boise funded operating costs through tax dollars, which was why education programs were discounted for Boise residents. In addition, a non-profit

called the Friends of Zoo Boise helped fund the education department, including salaries.

            Zoo Boise had designed many of its own programs and looked to the future for more. They were interested in creating adult programming when they had the resources and funds to do so. Their process of designing programming pulled from established resources such as Project Wild, but they also heavily focused on animals held in the education collection.

Here was the giraffe after happily accepting my offer of a lettuce leaf.

Overall Zoo Boise emphasized a hands-on approach with all of its education. I could see that they fostered a connection through direct interaction with the animals, whether through demonstrations, sloth bear feedings, or giraffe encounters. Zoo Boise wanted those participating in education programs as well as general zoo visitors to have opportunities to see and even touch animals close up in order to foster educational opportunities.

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.