Cohort 1 Empathy Champions Share-Outs
This resource includes the video recording project share-outs, and materials from each of our cohort 1 Empathy Champions.
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Lake Superior Zoo
AE Grant Showcase 2025: Community and Cultural Connections
This session highlights the power of community collaboration and cultural inclusion in fostering empathy for wildlife.
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AE Grant Showcase 2025: Outdoor Learning and Animal Ambassador Transportation
This session highlights the role of engaging spaces, interpretive storytelling, and interactive experiences in fostering empathy for wildlife.
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Empathy Capacity-Building through a Community of Practice Approach: Exploring Perceived Impacts and Implications
This paper “reports on an evaluation of an empathy-focused Community of Practice (CoP) that engaged 15 regional early childhood professionals (including four zoo preschool staff) in the co-creation of empathy practices that are deepened through a ‘Two-Worlds’ (Indigenous and Western) approach.
AE Grant Showcase 2024: Motivational Empathy through Playful Connections with Zoo Animals
This grant project developed a new play space near a red panda exhibit that highlighted the power of parallel play and allowed young children to learn empathetic connections to LSZ’s resident red panda.
AE Grant Showcase 2023: Discovery Tram Tour – Empathy Practices with Indigenous Perspectives
Northwest Trek evaluated how passive experiences like tram tours support empathy outcomes. Lake Superior Zoo, in partnership with University of Minnesota-Duluth, led a Community of Practice to co-create empathy practices grounded in Indigenous perspectives.
AE Grant Showcase 2022: Fostering Empathy for Ambassador Animals through Choice and Control – Creating Empathy for Animals at Zoo Boise
Lake Superior Zoo and Zoo Boise share projects that foster empathy through ambassador animal experiences.
AE Grant Showcase 2022: Culturally Responsive Empathy Programming in a Virtual Environment – Impact of LSZ School on Preschoolers’ Empathy for Wildlife
These two projects focused on culturally responsive programming and early childhood empathy. Minnesota Zoo evaluated live virtual animal experiences with diverse schools and another expanded preschool programming and contribute to empathy research in young children.
Zoo School – Empathy Assessment Plan
Two instruments administered as a pretest in fall and post-test in spring, one measuring empathy with humans and with animals, and the second measuring affinity toward nature.
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AE Grant Showcase 2020: Fostering Empathy for Preschoolers
Designed for children ages 3 to 5, this program embeds empathy into social-emotional learning through a structured plan, assessments, and ongoing evaluation.
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