Education as a Bridge Between Communities

With the snow of winter behind us and the days starting to lengthen once more, here at the Zoo we're preparing for the fine weather of Spring. 

Our Winter Weekends Program has begun which includes the Unbelievable Encounters with Elephants activities. Friday Zoo visitors are treated to a special elephant training viewing during which they learn about the unique qualities of endangered Asian Elephants, threats to their natural habitat, and view firsthand the personal contact training methods used with our females to ensure that they cooperate willingly with health examinations. Visitors also learn about elephant diet and exercise needs. 

In other exciting news, the Gifted Students High School Zoology Graduation Program for 2015 has begun with a new group of eager and motivated teens. We look forward to another collection of interesting scientific research during the course of this year. 

The new Sea Israel educational website has received almost 1,000 visitors since it launched in September. The site provides a variety of educational content on the Mediterranean Sea for all ages including articles, videos, cartoons, and more. In addition, a comprehensive education plan for the Sea Israel Aquarium facility (currently under construction at the Zoo) has been compiled by our expert team of educators and marine biologists. Visitors to the future aquarium will learn about the importance of the world's oceans, seas, lakes and rivers in a variety of interesting and fun ways.

Our usual after school programs, school field trip programs, Animal Assisted Therapy, Zoomobile traveling workshops, and a variety of other programs continue to run as usual.

Stay tuned to hear about the special Spring educational activities coming up and thank you again for your support. Wishing you all a happy and healthy 2015!

The Zoo hosted many educational workshops and special activities over the Jewish High Holiday season which were well-attended. Our family ecological workshops - presented at the Zoo by the staff of the Zoomobile outreach program - once again proved to be very popular.

Education programs are in full swing since the start of the new school year. Aside from the popular weekly after-school program, and the ever popular Animal Assisted Therapy program, we continue to receive many school groups that attend as part of the ongoing education programs for both Hebrew and Arabic speakers.

This past week, the Zoo held a training course designed specifically for Arabic-speaking education guides. It was three day course designed and presented by two of our senior Arab staff members and was also attended by a representative from Qalqilya Zoo. the only zoo in the West Bank. We are planning a further training course in the future for all of our education guides but this one was tailored specifically to Arabic speakers.The course was very successful, with the guides receiving both formal lectures and practical training with our zookeeping team. In addition, the newer guides received the benefit of being exposed to the experience of more senior staff members.

We are delighted to see that the numbers of visiting Arab school groups are climbing steeply again after the fall in numbers caused by the conflict over the summer and we continue to strive toward creating a neutral and peaceful space where all of Jerusalem's diverse communities feel welcome to visit together.