This summer, the Santa Barbara Zoo is offering campers the opportunity to attend its award-winning summer camp and its new specialty camps.
The traditional Zoo Summer Camp, intended for children ages 3-8, is an exciting blend of animal and keeper interactions, arts & crafts, teacher-led workshops, and all sorts of fun learning experiences.
“Our goal is for the kids to have fun and learn something new along the way,” said Xanth El-Sayed, the Education Coordinator at the Santa Barbara Zoo.
“Really young kids come to traditional camp and really love it, but we wanted to keep kids engaged with all the cool things we are doing here.”
That is why the Zoo is expanding its traditional summer camp by including weeklong specialty camps, each with a different theme designed to excite and engage campers in new meaningful ways.
“We decided to pick some of the themes our traditional summer campers have really enjoyed and design a camp based on that subject,” El-Sayed explained. “This is our chance to be a little more thematic and focused.”
This includes the addition of five different camps: Junior Zookeeper (ages 9-12), Backyard Biologist (ages 6-12), Scales & Tales (ages 9-12), Pet Ready (ages 6-12), and Puppet Posse (ages 6-12).
Jr Zookeeper teaches campers about the daily tasks that come along with the territory of being a zookeeper and caring for specific animals’ exhibits.
Conservation is one of the main focuses of the Backyard Biologist camp. Campers will learn professional biologist methods, such as data collection and observation, to record local birds, frogs, and snakes. The camp will also include an overnight stay at the Zoo where campers can practice the techniques they learned earlier in the week.
“The kids that attend the Scales & Tails camp will get to work with keepers to help design their very own temporary exhibits that we will display in our “eeeww” reptile house,” El-Sayed described. Leaning how to choose the appropriate flora and fauna for each exhibit is just one of the ways campers will get a special behind-the-scenes look at Zoo operations.
There’s even a camp to give kiddies real life experience about the not-so-glamorous side of owning and caring for a pet. The goal of the Pet Ready camp is “to get kids involved and knowledgeable about every aspect of animal care, from vet care to feeding, to keeping your animal entertained through behavioral enrichment, and of course, about the fun stuff too.”
During Puppet Posse, the actors of the infamous Dino show, including the star Duncan the T-Rex, will work alongside campers to help them design their very own original skits. “They will build puppets throughout the week that will be presented at a live show that the children have created and worked on all week.”
“All of the aspects of the camps are what we pay people to do here, so it helps educate the public about our organization, while also engaging and teaching kids practical life skills.”
The specialty camps will be offered 2-3 times during the summer and will be held alongside the traditional summer camp.
Visit sbzoo.org/learn/zoo-camp/ to learn more about traditional camp and speciality camp offerings.
