Fort Worth Zoo unveils 11,000-square-foot exploration center to foster wildlife education
The Fort Worth Zoo unveiled its brand new Exploration and Learning Center on Thursday, just four days before the start of the Summer Zoo Camp season.
Large animal photos, including a lion and a saltwater crocodile, grace the walls of the entrance. A stingray flaps in the bottom of a glass tank, seemingly oblivious to the schools of fish swimming by.
Inside the learning area, zookeepers display live animals in a foretaste of what campers will see next week. An eastern indigo snake squirms in the hands of one keeper, and later a possum named Ken eats apples and lima beans while perched on her shoulder.
The wall partitions are movable, so they can be adjusted to fit the size of the group. According to zoo staff, the new facility is around 11,000 square feet with enough room for six classrooms and multi-purpose space. Overhead doors open onto a stone plaza on one side and glass doors lead to a 2,500-square-foot deck on the other.
Ramona Bass, chair of the Fort Worth Zoological Association Board of Directors, said the new facility will help the zoo continue its mission of education and fostering a love of wildlife in the next generation.
“We’ll be able to serve more children, because ... we have hundreds on the waiting list every summer,” Bass said. “So it’s time. It was time.”
The Fort Worth Zoo offers a variety of educational programs, including Summer Zoo Camp, Zoo Preschool, classes for homeschoolers and field trips during the school year.
According to Kathy Dorris, the zoo’s director of education, over 100,000 children have been impacted by the zoo’s curriculum, and the demand for wildlife and nature based education is increasing. Figures from a Fort Worth Zoo media release announcing the education center’s opening show that Summer Zoo Camp enrollment has grown 45% since 2018 and Zoo Preschool has grown 30% over the past six years.
The zoo’s first on-site education center, the Gloria Lupton Tennison Education Center, opened in 1994. Dorris said they have outgrown the building.
“Our staff has literally used every square inch of the space available to accommodate as many children as possible,” Dorris said. “We were bursting at the seams.”
The kids who attend Summer Zoo Camp spend about 50% of their time outdoors, according to Dorris. The extra indoor space provided by the new learning center will give them another place to get in out of the Texas heat. Dorris said they will also continue hosting educational programs in the Gloria Lupton Tennison Education Center.
Dorris said her favorite feature of the new building is its flexibility to accommodate several sizes of groups, thanks to the movable walls.
“It’s great for summer,” she said. “But then again when we have schools that come, we can do special programs for schools during the school year, field trip programs. And so you know, we can move walls, you could have an entire grade level. We could have 300 in here, we could have a whole school in here.”
Construction began on the Exploration and Learning Center last February. Bass said some generous contributions from donors allowed them to complete the center ahead of schedule.
“It took a lot of people to get this done,” Bass said.
This story was originally published May 30, 2024 at 5:12 PM.
