Potter Park Zoo’s program sponsorships provide individuals and businesses the opportunity to demonstrate their initiatives to thousands of guests annually- on zoo grounds and at outreaches too! These sponsorship opportunities provide brand visibility for your business and demonstrate a strong commitment to the surrounding communities and their residents.
The zoo has extensive education programming offered at the zoo and off-site at community partner locations.
- Zoo in Your Neighborhood (ZIYN) and FALCONERS are the zoo’s two family programs. Click here to learn more about these programs.
- BIG Zoo Lesson (BZL) is an innovative, interdisciplinary, problem-based approach to teaching and learning. Teachers bring their students to the zoo for a full week of activities and lessons. BZL offers a variety of learning experiences with visual, auditory, and tactile experiences to help students retain the materials and lessons throughout the week.
Zoo in Your Neighborhood
Zoo in Your Neighborhood (ZIYN) is a family program which started in 2017. This program is designed to reach under-served communities in the tri-county region. This program provides free presentations to ZIYN partners which include library branches, community centers, YMCAs, Ronald McDonald Houses, Children’s Homes, and more. Presentations are free to all participants. As part of this program, each community partner site receives zoo passes that community members “check-out” like a library book and can come to the zoo at no cost. After their visit, the zoo passes are returned back to the location for the next family to use.
Due to this programs immediate impact and broad scope, Zoo in Your Neighborhood received national recognition from the AZA by receiving the Angela Peterson Excellence in Diversity Award in September 2019.
To learn more about Zoo in Your Neighborhood, click here.
FALCONERS
The FACLONERS program started in 2016 and is a family program designed to allow children or adults of all ages with special needs and unique challenges and their whole family to have an enriching educational experience in a safe, welcoming, and sensory friendly environment. There is one FALCONER event per month and each event is free to all participants.
To learn more about FALCONERS, click here.
BIG Zoo Lesson
The BIG Zoo Lesson (BZL) first started in 2000 and the zoo has welcomed over 25,000+ students, teachers, parent-volunteers throughout multiple school districts in the tri-county area.
This program is an innovative, interdisciplinary, problem-based approach to teaching and learning. Teachers bring their students to the zoo for a full week of immersive lessons with zoo volunteers and zookeepers, daily journaling of animal observations, and cooperative research.
