Hi all, I am working on starting a project looking in to how education in zoos has developed since the 19th centuary to becoming a major part of a zoos daily life. The questions I am hoping to answer are, When did it start becoming important, was it always important, how was it implamented in early zoo etc. etc. If anyone has any information of were to look, knows of any leads I could follow I would be most gratefull. I have contact the major, oldest zoo's in the UK and Ireland for information. Many thanks
Refine your definition of education. Do informative signs count? Or are you only interested in formal education (classes, lectures, etc)?
Thanks for the reply, I am interested in education as a whole, so yes, early educational signs, leaflets, everthing that has led to how it is implimented today.
Paignton Zoo, after Herbert Whitley's death, assumed very much of an educational ethos -- conservation was not really mentioned in those days. I believe the now long-defunct Pan's Garden prided itself on multilingual exhibit labels.
This may or may not be helpful, but the Association of Zoo and Aquarium Docents (or AZAD) was founded in 1985 (for USA zoos). I believe Los Angeles Zoo may have had the first docent program in USA (not sure the year though). History of AZAD
