Zoo wins top education award at AZA conference

The Oregon Zoo drew praise from colleagues across the country this week at the annual Association of Zoos and Aquariums conference, held this year in Tampa, Florida. The zoo won the association’s prestigious Education Award, earning top honors for the Zoo Apprenticeship Program, a groundbreaking youth-development approach that recently celebrated its 25th anniversary.

“This is like the Oscars for zoo and aquarium work,” said Melanie Sorensen, the Oregon Zoo’s director of education and conservation. “It is great to be acknowledged by our peers, and I couldn’t be more proud of our team.”

The Zoo Apprenticeship Program — aka ZAP — offers a multiyear paid apprenticeship for a diverse cohort of youth, ages 15 and up. Rafi Ali and Ariel Segura — two alumni of the program who are now full-time staff members on the zoo’s education team — accepted the award from AZA executive vice president Craig Hoover.

Since 2012, the Oregon Zoo has been recognized with 15 of AZA’s major annual awards: six for conservation work on behalf of endangered species, two for excellence in exhibit design, one for educational programming, one for environmental efforts in the zoo’s day-to-day operations, one for achievement in diversity and three for marketing excellence, plus the Half-Century Award, honoring 50 years of continuous accreditation.

The Association of Zoos and Aquariums — a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of zoos and aquariums in the areas of conservation, animal well-being, education, science and recreation — is the accrediting body for more than 250 top zoos and aquariums in the United States and overseas. In 1974, the Oregon Zoo and Philadelphia Zoo became the first two organizations to earn AZA accreditation.