Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by Alicia M. Highland, Education  Woodland Park Zoo’s Advanced Inquiry Program (AIP) Master’s students and alumni are enacting environmental stewardship and social change locally and globally. Here is just one of  their amazing stories : This week’s blog features AIP alumni Nate Brown. He shares how his AIP experience took him on a journey to Patagonia, Chile and helped him discover the importance of engaging local communities in environmental conservation.  Why did you apply to the Advanced Inquiry Program? As much as I love science, I knew right away that I didn’t want to become a scientist as a profession.  I came to this program because I was finally able to see the need for education, communications, and community engagement within the conservation world. Those were values and skills I could bring and develop further. I just needed to learn how to apply them. What impact has the program had on you personally and professionally? This program has ha

Posted by Jenny Mears, Education Note from the editor: There’s a world teeming below your feet in the Washington wetlands, a world we’re just beginning to document with the help of volunteers through the Amphibian Monitoring Program , a Living Northwest citizen science project. Amphibian Monitoring is offered through Woodland Park Zoo’s Living Northwest program, in partnership with Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife (WDFW), Northwest Trek, and Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium. Going on the sixth year of this citizen science effort, volunteers work in teams to survey ponds and wetlands in King and Snohomish Counties. An Amphibian Monitoring volunteer surveys Magnuson Park for egg masses with her team, which is comprised of ZooCorps teen volunteers. Photo by Lyra Dalton, WPZ staff The sixth season of Amphibian Monitoring  has come to an end, and Woodland Park Zoo’s citizen science program has much to celebrate: A successful transition to iNaturalist , a user-fr

Posted by Ryan Driscoll, Education Note from the Editor:  Each term, ZooCrew empowers middle school youth to become conservation leaders by providing science learning experiences that inspire them to learn, care, and act through after school and summer expanded learning opportunities. Through the ZooCrew programs, we excite youth from  communities across King County  about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) subjects by engaging with real-world conservation issues, preparing them for continued involvement in Woodland Park Zoo’s youth programs, and inspiring them to consider a broad range of STEM and conservation careers. We believe engaging these students, as well as youth across Washington state, is key to solving current conservation issues in our own backyard and around the world. What does the word sustainability mean?  That was the question we asked during the ZooCrew Summer Learning Program , and 22 middle-school students from across Seattle came up with some

Posted by: Kirsten Pisto, Communications The youth will save the world. Sentiments like this can seem overzealous in their predictions, but after spending a few hours interviewing the participants of the Seattle Youth Climate Action Network (SYCAN) Summer Learning Experience, I am convinced. An intensive pilot program, SYCAN Summer Learning Experience invited high school students from communities across King County to participate in a dynamic four-week local exploration of all things climate while keeping their brains abuzz during summer break. Along with three interns from the City of Seattle’s Seattle Youth Employment Program, three educators from Woodland Park Zoo and generous support from Stolte Family Foundation and others, the group came together to learn about the effects of climate change on people and the environment—and what some Seattle institutions and professionals are doing about it. Each participant was given an Orca card, gifted by King County Me

Posted by: Katie Remine, Education In December of 2016, a fire damaged Woodland Park Zoo’s Day and Night exhibits . Staff from across the zoo came together with local firefighters to respond to the emergency and protect the animals in our care. With this tragedy in recent memory, we were very saddened to learn about a fire that impacted the conservation community in Eastern Washington. In late June, a brush fire caused great damage to the Pygmy Rabbit Recovery Project. But, like our experience at the zoo, a wide variety of partners and stakeholders came together in response to the emergency. This August, our Advanced Inquiry Program graduate students were able to go out, get dirty and help our friends at the Pygmy Rabbit Recovery Project. Pygmy rabbit in a breeding enclosure in central Washington’s shrub steppe. Photo by Katie Remine/Woodland Park Zoo. Weighing less than a pound for an average adult, pygmy rabbits are the smallest known rabbit species in the world and are the

Posted by Kirsten Pisto, Communications Bear Affair: Living Northwest Conservation Day is one of our favorite events. Each year in early June, we get to do what we love best: watch our animals enjoy a special day tailored just to them and watch our visitors fall in love with those same animals, learn more about conservation actions they can take right here in the Pacific Northwest, and become stewards for protecting wildlife in Washington. It's also a day we get to celebrate the incredible work our conservation colleagues are doing too, as many of our peers join us by setting up learning opportunities that start on the North Meadow and wind all the way through Northern Trail. Our volunteers come out on this day, as do ZooCorps teens, and everyone from our horticulture staff (providing beautiful flowers for the mock wedding cake and arch) to our dedicated keepers who make sure the animals have a great day (without eating too many coffee grounds or cake). It doesn't get any bet