VIRTUAL PROGRAMS
GET Closer in Comfort
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Join our animal care and education team for an opportunity to Get Closer to our animals from the comfort of your learning space. Suitable for classrooms, non-school groups, home school groups, community groups and more. Let us bring conservation, education and adventure to you!
Explore the Edmonton Valley Zoo from the comfort of your own classroom! Tailored to meet the Alberta curriculum and its applicable age groups, but flexible for any viewer, these interactive programs highlight some species not always seen during on-site programs and often exhibit behind-the-scenes highlights. After the video concludes, join a member of the zoo education team for an interactive Q&A session.
STEP 1: Choose your Video
STEP 2: Book Your Program
Due to the popularity of our programs, we do require a minimum of 1 month advance notice for reservation requests and all applications will be processed in the order received. Upon completion of this form, we will contact you to go over details and availability before the reservation is confirmed.
Please be prepared with the following information to make your booking:
- Program Name (Virtual Zoo Experience)
- 2-3 potential program dates
- School mailing address, including postal code
- School telephone and fax number
- Contact name and names of teachers for all classes being booked
- Email address(es) of teacher(s) booking and attending the program
- Number of children attending
- Special needs / accessibility arrangements
STEP 3: WATCH Your VIDEO
Meeting Invitation
The interpreter assigned to lead your program will contact the individual who booked the program at least 3 days prior to your field trip, to confirm details with you and provide the meeting link/invitation. The interpreter will contact you by email. If you haven’t heard from them, please check your spam folder.
Video Playback - Program Structure
Tours will be on a zoo-hosted platform (Google Meet or Microsoft Teams), participants will be contacted in advance and sent the invitation to access the program.
When you join the video call, we will be presenting a “Starting Soon” screen, which is playing a video. This is a good time to confirm your volume settings for the video.
We will communicate with you in the beginning through the “Chat” section of the meeting. Please be able to write a reply to us, just in case microphone communication isn’t reliable so we can still have a conservation. We will say hello and ask for you to confirm when you are ready to go. We will wait until the booked starting time to begin the video if we don’t hear anything from you.
At the start time of the program, the video will be started by the zoo and will play in full. There will be at least one intermission during the video to be used as a chance for teachers to get participants up, moving and refocused and/or lead a discussion based on the video topic. You will let us know in the chat or through your microphone when you are ready to return to the video. Recording of the program is not permitted at any time.
Required Equipment to Participate
- Access to Google Meet or Microsoft Teams
- A strong internet connection
- Projector and/or computer with speakers
- Ability to type questions or speak into a microphone
- Optional: pencils & paper for participants to write down questions throughout the video
Intermissions
Our videos all include 1-2 guided intermissions, where we pause the video and encourage teacher-lead discussion. This is to provide an opportunity for students to stand up and stretch, as well as provide some conversation around the program curriculum theme. Teachers will let our team know when students are ready to un-pause the video and continue.
** IMPORTANT: At least one adult is required to remain with the group to facilitate intermission conversation and movement breaks, as well as support the chat/microphone usage during the question and answer session.
STEP 4: THE FAQ SESSION
After the video has finished, a zoo educator will join you on camera for a live, interactive question and answer (Q&A) discussion with participants - lead by your group! Once the group is out of questions, the program will be over and the virtual call will end.