Why are animals nocturnal? How do day and night activity increase diversity in a habitat? What senses are needed to live in darkness? What are the effects of light pollution on our environment? The new information system in Frankfurt Zoo's nocturnal animal house provides vivid and highly exciting answers to all these questions and more. Ten new interactive information stations invite visitors on their tour of the house to discover the world of night monkeys, aardvarks & Co.
The Grzimek House, which opened in 1978, still houses one of the largest nocturnal animal departments in Europe. Here, the day-night rhythm is reversed. Visitors are immersed in the world of animals that are active while we sleep. "That in itself is exciting," says Zoo Director Professor Dr. Manfred Niekisch, "but the new information system now combines the observation of the animals with well-prepared knowledge that is likely to trigger many an 'aha' effect, for example when an animated film shows how the nocturnal aardvarks use their sense of smell to track down termites in the soil. When you then watch our aardvarks ERMINE and ELVIS in their enclosure, knowledge transfer comes alive. This is a special feature that only zoos can offer." In developing this new information concept, the zoo education department implemented the didactic idea of comprehension through observation. This principle already runs through the zoo's entire educational offering and will be further expanded in the future through the use of a variety of media.
In Grzimekhaus, the new information system was developed using existing structures and supplemented with contemporary teaching methods. Cross-fading techniques, animated cartoons, film clips, question games but also original preparations of insects and animal skulls were used to present the information in a varied and always stimulating way. "The art of it," Niekisch says, "is to make the stations equally interesting for all groups of visitors."
Funding for the design and implementation of the new information system was provided by funds from the KfW Foundation, which is currently supporting five educational projects at the zoo, including an information station on the zoo as a habitat for wild native species and the information services surrounding the new penguin facility currently under construction at the zoo. "Our common goal is to sensitize visitors to the species richness and the living world of nocturnal species, which cannot be directly experienced by us humans due to their different rhythm of life. Innovative didactic methods in particular, consisting of an exciting mix of stories and information, help people to gain a better understanding," says Dr Bernd Siegfried, Managing Director of KfW Stiftung.
This is a continuation of KfW Stiftung's support for the zoo, which KfW Bankengruppe began in 2011. The aim of this funding is to expand and improve the information and education on offer at the zoo for all visitor groups, thereby making an active contribution to raising awareness of the issues of nature and species conservation.
