Milwaukee County Zoo

I ended up at the Milwaukee Zoo because I had the opportunity to meet Nigel Rothfels, author of the book Savages and Beasts: The Birth of the Modern Zoo. I read Savages and Beasts before setting out on my trip and used its historical examples and overarching themes as background information to contextualize many of my visits.
It was appropriate then that I learned so much about Milwaukee County Zoo's history. It was rare that I got an in-depth history of a zoo that went back more than five to ten years. I don't think this was the fault of anyone at the zoos, but more a general mindset I discovered both on my trip and while reading Savages and Beasts. The concept of education in zoos is often thought of as a constant, as if zoos were always designed for the educational purposes we use them for today. In reality, zoos were initially for research or entertainment, and the modern zoo we think of was created in Germany as a money-making initiative. Even the open space enclosures with hidden barriers (in contrast with the small metal cages of years past) were created by Hagenbeck, a zoo pioneer, to increase profits, not for any benefit to the animal. Sometimes it seemed like admitting the history of zoos and their relationship with education would invalidate the current educational value of zoos.

But Milwaukee embraced its long history and was proud of its growth, especially with its large library and archive.  Their formal education program began in 1976, although before that they had an active docent program. The docents helped launch the program and a county extension agent was hired to become the director. The program started in a janitor's closet and soon after upgraded to a trailer in a parking lot. At that time, docents were directly involved with animal handling and care, although the Milwaukee County Zoo no longer allows docents or volunteers to handle animals. They gained a brick and mortar building in the zoo later and it contained three classrooms. In the mid 1990's they received a grant to build education classrooms throughout the zoo as well as Ed-Ops or educational opportunity boxes integrated with zoo exhibits. These boxes were designed to help school teachers educate their classes on field trips using objects already centered throughout the zoo, because the zoo had a thriving school program at that point. Around this time they began to lose core members of their dedicated docent team who had been there since the mid 1970's due to age and began to increase the number of paid staff they had devoted to education and specifically school programming. In their small building with only three classrooms they were running their free school-based programs, as well as their fee-based programs which were mainly catered to zoological society members, and the space was no longer suiting them. In the summer months they began to bring in trailers to help with an expansion for a number of years, and over more years they were able to fundraise for and build their new 30,000 square foot education building with eight classrooms which opened in 2004. Around that same time they began doing more outreach, first through a corporate sponsor, though that program went away when they lost the funding. They then began doing more classroom based outreach to schools, and these programs were adapted so they could be done on site at the zoo or travel to a nearby school. They also received a grant for a program called Kohl's Wild Theater which does interactive shows about conservation within the zoo.
Currently, the Milwaukee Zoo has a wide range of educational programming from early childhood to a lecture series for adults. This includes programs such as the Animal Ambassadors Continuum for young students in order to introduce them to learning about the zoo, a career day in August in which the public is able to learn about zoo and county career options. They also work closely with the zoo's diversity committee, especially for their career program, in order to recognize contributions of the zoo's minority employees and to better serve minority populations in the community.
The education program is a hybrid between the zoo proper and the Zoological Society, a nonprofit which helps to maintain the educational facility and support it. Both work in tandem to offer the best programming possible while generating revenue as they can in order to reduce costs to the Zoological Society.
While on my visit to the zoo I was able to see a few of their programs, such as Kohl's Wild Theater, in action. Overall touring the Milwaukee County Zoo and learning about their educational programming was an incredibly informative experience, though especially so in relation to their history. I wasn't able to learn much about how many education departments started or developed long term while on my trip, and being able to see an example of the growth of an education program was a unique and valuable opportunity.