SEATTLE - Woodland Park Zoo’s newest experience, Zoomazium, will receive TEA’s Thea Award for Outstanding Achievement for a zoo exhibit. Zoo officials will accept the award at the 13th Annual Thea Awards Gala, which will be held March 3, 2007 at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, Calif.

“ We are honored to win this Outstanding Achievement Award for Zoomazium,” said Zoomazium Program and Exhibits Manager Frank Hein. “We created Zoomazium to be a special place where kids can fall in love with nature on the grounds of our world-class naturalistic zoo. We already know that kids love Zoomazium, but we’re especially pleased and excited to be recognized by our peers for having created something unique and innovative.”

The nature-centered, interactive facility is divided into nature-themed zones and encourages active play and learning. A day in the 5,500-square-foot Zoomazium play space might include ascending a mountain, crawling through a nurse log, climbing a towering strangler fig tree or squirming through a dark cave. At Nature Exchange, kids can earn points and trade their nature knowledge and observations for all kinds of fascinating items like an agate or a crystal, or if they really study, perhaps a fossilized trilobite. Storytelling, live animal demonstrations, videos, theatre performance, arts and crafts, and more await inquisitive and playful minds.

Truly innovative technology designed by zoo staff enables kids to learn while they have fun and play. Beautiful, high resolution computer and projection screens display ever-changing pictures and moving video of kids’ favorite animals. “If you apply it right, technology can be a surprisingly effective tool for getting kids to connect with nature,” said Donovan Allen, who designed much of the software for Zoomazium. “You really have to see it to believe it.” Dramatic theatre lighting transforms Zoomazium into a rich and compelling environment. Birds sing, frogs croak, and a variety of sounds and sights from nature combine to provide an introduction for children into the wonders and diversity of the real world waiting for them just outside.

Zoomazium also serves as the home base for the zoo’s teen-based Zoo Corps. As facilitators of the nature play space, Zoo Corps volunteers and staff engage youngsters with storytelling, arts and crafts, games, wildlife theatre, Nature Exchange and much more.

Zoomazium’s core project team included, among others: Zoo designers and technology staff, Mithu¯n (architecture and landscape architecture); AldrichPears Associates (exhibits); Dillon Works! (design and fabrication); and Kirtley-Cole Associates LLC (general contractor).

“ The TEA’s Thea Awards once again honor outstanding achievement in experience design and themed entertainment, and reinforce the value of creating compelling places and experiences to an ever-wider range of venues, events and industries,” said TEA International Board President Craig Hanna, of Thinkwell Design & Production. “These Awards recognize accomplishments from museums large and small, from zoos and theme parks, from branded retail facilities to world expositions. Truly they reflect the impact that storytelling, architecture, technology, and experience design are having on the guest and visitor experience.”

TEA (formerly Themed Entertainment Association) is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1991. It is dedicated to connecting organizations seeking to engage, enchant, educate and entertain their guests and visitors with the creators of compelling places and experiences worldwide. Its members have conceived, designed, fabricated and produced highly successful experience-based museum exhibits, science center interactives, corporate visitor centers, live events and live performance venues, themed entertainment and retail centers, casinos and resorts, themed restaurants, aquariums, zoos, heritage centers, theme parks and more.

Zoo winter hours are 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. daily. Zoomazium is free with zoo admission. For more information about Zoomazium and hours, visit the Zoomazium Web site. Zoo admission: Adult (13-64) $10.50; Child (3-12) $7.50; Toddler (0-2) Free. Seniors and disabled receive a discount and zoo members receive free zoo admission year-round. Parking: $4.00. Parking is limited. Please call Metro at 206.553.3000 for bus service to the zoo.

For more information about the zoo and how to become a zoo member, call 206.684.4800 or 206.684.4026 (TTY). Or, visit the zoo’s Web site at www.zoo.org.

Woodland Park Zoo
Accredited by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums, award-winning Woodland Park Zoo is famed for pioneering naturalistic exhibits and setting a standard for zoos all over the world. With conservation, education and excellent animal care at the core of the zoo’s mission, the zoo is helping to save endangered species in Washington state and around the world including tree kangaroos, snow leopards, red-crowned cranes, African wild dogs, western pond turtles and Oregon silverspot butterflies. By inspiring visitors and others to care and act, Woodland Park Zoo is making a difference in our planet’s future.