The team of naturalist interpreters at Zoo de Granby in Quebec, Canada, is actively involved in conservation education and meets with more than 47,000 young people every year through various workshops. Whether by visiting the Zoo or within their classrooms, students have the opportunity to connect with the animal world through dynamic, fun, and educational presentations.

For several years, we’ve been receiving school requests to offer workshops for special-needs classes. Without a suitable program and qualified staff, we had to either turn down these requests, or offer a workshop that couldn’t fully meet these students’ needs. With our growing interest to reach a wider audience, but also wanting to be more inclusive, we designed a new workshop aimed at students with special needs specifically those on the autism spectrum.

The needs and abilities of these students vary greatly; therefore, we developed our workshop in collaboration with specialized educational institutions. Their knowledge of the issues facing these young people and the reality of a different school environment helped us target the themes to be addressed. More importantly, they helped us determine how to develop these themes in order to allow autistic students to connect with the animal world. Furthermore, our naturalist interpreters had to educate themselves how to reach this clientele to convey their conservation message. A specialized organization, Autisme Montérégie, trained our entire education team. This agency offers information and training on autism spectrum disorders to families, community organizations, and other partners providing services to people on the autism spectrum.

This led to the development of our educational workshop for students with special needs, called Exploring the Animal World. With its inclusive and interactive approach, the workshop offers students a fun and enriching experience as they learn about the animal world, while always being mindful of their abilities.

Through modular activities and a flexible workshop setting, this program can be adapted in real time to the potential of the participants, whether they have a physical, sensory, intellectual, or language disability or are on the autism spectrum. The learning potential and overall benefits are numerous for these young people, whether it’s to develop their individual skills, promote their social integration or to have them experience truly successful outcomes because everything is adapted throughout the workshop according to the strengths of each participant.

The theme of discovering the animals that live in water, on land or in the sky, is very simple; yet for some of these students, this concept is a challenge in itself. For each environment specific to the species, the students are offered several activities according to their strengths and always in the same order, because repetition can be helpful and reassuring for them.

We begin the activity by having a student roll a huge die showing different environments on each of its sides (perfect activity for a student who can’t stand still). Then, by immersing their hand in a sensory bin, another student must find the animal figurine living in the habitat shown on the die (ideal for a student who has a special keenness for textures). Finally, the students must associate the figurine they’ve found with the corresponding picture of the animal (they can ask a non-verbal student to come and point it out to us). Animal calls, videos, and artifact displays will be presented as well. Once this activity cycle is completed, another child is invited to roll the huge die and the game goes on for even more fun!

In order to communicate with all these students with widely varying capacities, pictograms and adapted sign language are also used. Yes, our team has even developed a basic knowledge of sign language, that’s how motivated they are!

Of course, in order for the workshop to proceed smoothly, the cooperation of school staff, teachers, and special educators, is essential. Their enthusiasm is contagious and their support extraordinary, because like us, they truly want to see their students thrive.

Finally, we’re now able to offer schools an adapted workshop allowing students with special needs to also connect with the animal world!

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