“The zoo provided a wonderful experience for our students from Glacier Park Elementary. The presentation was structured to teach students how to behave around the owl and provided information that was really relevant to our current unit of study.”

—Andy Hanson, Teacher
Glacier Park Elementary
Tahoma

Education Programs

Woodland Park Zoo provides children with essential lessons in environmental education.

Students across Washington state need a gateway to nature.

• More than 65,000 students visit the zoo on school- sponsored trips each year.

• The zoo reaches more than 19,000 students through classroom visits around the state, educating them about wildlife and the preservation of habitats.

• Subsidized entrance fees and transportation costs enable 13,000 students from underserved communities to visit the zoo.

• Hundreds of educators participate in zoo-sponsored teacher institutes that provide in-depth curriculum development for programs across the state.

Up close encounters with animals leave lasting impressions.

• The zoo features numerous nationally award-winning exhibits exclusively designed to give visitors “nose-to-nose” experiences.

• Zoo Corps, our educational program for teens, provides hands-on conservation experience and teaches social skills and confidence.

• Early childhood learning programs throughout the region can visit Woodland Park Zoo free of charge, providing our youngest students with their first encounters with animals.

• The zoo’s innovative and interactive play area, Zoomazium, teaches more than 500,000 children annually through exploration and nature play.

Woodland Park Zoo is a “living classroom,” reaching more than 1 million people every year.

• The zoo’s award-winning exhibits simulate wildlife habitats and feature nearly 300 species of animals from around the world, many threatened or endangered.

• Nearly 40,000 tickets are distributed to nonprofit and charitable organizations throughout King County, providing seniors, low-income and handicapped individuals the opportunity to visit the zoo.

• Keeper talks and docent presentations provide important and intimate learning experiences for visitors.

• Hundreds of educational signs present information on wildlife natural history, behavior and conservation projects.

• The zoo’s 92 acres feature thousands of trees, plants, shrubs and flowers representing the wide diversity of plant life around the world, building appreciation and knowledge about the world’s habitats.

Ways of giving