Zoomazium marries fun with nature

Mon., May 15, 2006

Donna Gordon Blankinship Associated Press

SEATTLE – This week Western Washington parents get a gift from the Woodland Park Zoo: another place their kids can go run around on rainy days.

Of course, the plan for Zoomazium, a new indoor play-and-learn space opening on Friday, has loftier goals: infusing a love and respect for nature, giving kids another way to relate to the outdoors and getting them to think about conservation.

But children getting a sneak peek at the 8,500-square-foot center last week were most impressed with its potential as a playground – from the mountain to climb over and under to the giant treehouse and slide to explore.

The zoo staff had been thinking about creating some sort of science learning center since the 1970s, but the project started to come together about four years ago.

“Nature play is in the decline,” said Frank Hein, program manager of Zoomazium. Kids are spending less time outside exploring the natural environment because of safety issues and too many competing indoor activities.

Zoo staff sees Zoomazium, which is near the west entrance to the zoo, as a way to get kids outdoors in a safe environment by providing a gateway into the other exhibits.

“You can pretend to be an elephant and then go meet one,” Hein said. “This is part of the zoo and the zoo is part of us.”

He said they are still exploring ways to connect the zoo with Zoomazium. They hope to bring animals onto the stage of the indoor center and invite children to visit the animals later, in their habitat.

Young people can also explore more of the science behind the nature they see at home and at the zoo by visiting the Nature Exchange corner of Zoomazium, where they can earn prizes for scientific research.

The exhibit was designed by AldrichPears Associates of Vancouver, B.C., and built by Dillon Works of Mukilteo, Wash. They got a lot of help refining their ideas from the 10 kids, ages 6 to 11, who were chosen in a contest to be ZooKids.

The ZooKids helped make the mountain bridge a little more exciting by taking away a plank and putting a piece of see-through fiberglass in its place. Hein said they even rescued the name of the project, which was originally slated to be called the family science learning center.

“They said, ‘that’s boring,’ ” said the 46-year-old field ecologist. “We really pushed ourselves to see everything from kids’ eyes.”

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