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current program activities and ensure Expanding the Field qNatureStart™
that ZAP! is relevant for the families it
serves. Community advisors monitor Nature Play ZAP! was launched Learning to Play.
gaps in what schools can teach and last November. Playing to Learn.
make recommendations for ZAP!
programming to help bridge these Based on our proven NatureStart™ When it became clear that
gaps. Recognizing that transportation early childhood programming (see ZAP! would benefit from an
to the zoo was an obstacle for many the sidebar), Nature Play ZAP! early childhood component,
ZAP! participants, the advisory boards offers activities for children ages 1 the Chicago Zoological Society
suggested a summer shuttle bus to 5. Like big-kid ZAP!, the early was fortunate to have a proven
to whisk CTA riders directly from childhood program strives to reach model at the ready. The basis
popular transit stops to the zoo. predominantly African-American and of our Nature Play ZAP!
Latino neighborhoods. program is our innovative
Similarly, ZAP! educators pay and esteemed NatureStart™
close attention to and respond to Nature Play ZAP! participants program. The model uses
neighborhood needs. For instance, focus on the same annual theme children’s innate curiosity
many ZAP! participants have younger that ZAP! does. Children learn about the natural world to
siblings. Parents have had to tote about animals, nature, science, and foster learning. Young children
little ones along to the program even conservation through play and various are natural explorers. Without
though no programming formally activities. They might examine pine intending to, they put into
existed for them. To better meet cones, trace a pebble pattern, touch a practice the scientific method
the needs of ZAP! parents and their real shed snakeskin, rake through pine with every new encounter.
youngest children and to grow ZAP! needles, or enjoy a nature-themed story. They continuously explore and
in the next strategic direction, we question the world around them.
recently expanded the program to And just like in the ZAP! program, They hypothesize. They draw
include a thoughtfully developed early Nature Play ZAP! provides free conclusions. Often, children
childhood component. field trips to the families who have will take these observations a
attended multiple sessions per year. step further and truly become
champions for nature.
Guided by more than two
decades of research, real-world
observation, and evaluation, the
Society developed NatureStart™
as a one-of-a-kind approach
to early childhood education,
modeled from the same
principles used to design Hamill
Family Play Zoo. This model
has been shared outside the
zoo, in our communities, and
with informal educators around
the world.
Shelly Hope, SCIENCES community relations 23
coordinator, leading an activity at Eden Place ZAP!
BROOKFIELD ZOO | SUMMER 2018
