Learning Group: Infusing Empathy into Zoo Summer Camps

This learning group highlights components of summer camp programs built with empathy outcomes in mind and features tangible examples of how different organizations use summer camps to foster empathy for wildlife in campers. Speakers include:

Shana Kent, Learning Engagement Manager at the Alaska Sealife Center will discuss the creation of their empathy badges and the various summer camp activities that campers partake in to collect their badges.

Emily Palena, Children’s Programs Manager at the Woodland Park Zoo will share how camp facilitators used a “postcards to animals” activity to measure empathy outcomes and how the camps team is focusing on other evaluation methodologies around measuring empathy. She will also share how they structure camp programming and summer staff training to center empathy building outcomes.

Kimberly Giddens, Arts Education Coordinator at the Zoological Society of Milwaukee will share how empathy is embedded into the society’s arts education summer camps, including their theater programming.

We hope that attendees to this event can walk away with new ideas and examples of tangible ways to embed empathy and empathy outcomes into a variety of camp programming. This event will be recorded and we encourage anyone interested to attend live to help foster rich conversation after the presentations.