‘Really incredible’: Zoo’s new Gorilla Conservation Center brings students and animals together

The Gorilla Conservation Center serves many roles for Brookfield Zoo Chicago.

Inside the lobby of the sleek new building, a two-story indoor space lets you see gorillas during the cold months and other primates over the summer, when the great apes are out and about in their section of “Tropical Forests.”

The huge outdoor addition has areas for the zoo’s family troop, bachelor unit, orangutans and monkeys.

Young people also now have a place to call their own in the thick of the action: Above the center is a new home for the King Conservation Leadership Academy. Not long after a classroom conversation turned to recent gorilla sightings, Jontu, the male silverback boss, dropped in on a teen group as if his ears were burning.

“They saw a gorilla right outside the terrace here,” said Rita Stacey, the zoo’s senior vice president of programs and impact. “It’s going to be really incredible to bring the students and the animals so close together in one space.”

The King Academy encompasses a range of educational programs for families, middle school students and teens. Meet a group of King Conservation Science Scholars, and it’s clear these high schoolers have become ambassadors of the zoo, well-versed in its care of animals and wildlife conservation work.

“This program nurtures the next generation of conservation leaders, young people who will carry forward the critical work of protecting biodiversity and restoring our planet's balanced ecosystems,” said Dr. Michael Adkesson, the zoo’s president and CEO.

The next generation

Through the academy, teens can explore their career interests with access to the behind-the-scenes world of the zoo.

Ashrith Valluri, a rising senior at Glenbard South High School in Glen Ellyn, saw animal checkups and vaccinations during his career investigation with zoo vets.

“They work extremely hard to make sure every single animal is at its best level,” he said.

Some teens have gone on research expeditions to Florida’s Gulf Coast. The zoo-funded Sarasota Dolphin Research Program ranks as the world’s longest-running study of a wild dolphin population.

“A small group of them gets to go down and spend a week there, learning everything they can,” said Kevin Conley, the zoo’s vice president of education and community engagement. “They’re out on the boat, they’re in the lab. They’re getting their hands wet and dirty the entire time and seeing what it really takes to do that sort of work.”

Ruby Monarrez and her expedition group worked on photo identification. Each dolphin’s dorsal fin is unique — almost like a fingerprint, said the soon-to-be senior at East Leyden High School.

Monarrez and her peers share that kind of encyclopedic knowledge and scientific poise in their public-facing roles at the zoo. Most are now doing what the zoo calls interpretation, engaging guests at animal exhibits.

“We’re focusing on the conservation knowledge, the STEM, the science, technology, engineering and math, and then those 21st-century skills that'll get you to that career and college readiness,” Conley said.

“So how do you speak to someone? How do you do a résumé? How do you work through those collaborative processes that you have to do in a group project?” Those are “really the skills that they need so that they can take that conservation message out into the world.”

The teens are quick to dispense those messages. Monarrez notes visitors can drop off old phones in an ecocell station in the conservation center’s lobby. In the new “Tropical Forests” outdoor primate complex, an informational panel explains that recycling devices that contain coltan can reduce mining where gorillas live in the wild.

“What we're going to be able to give to all these participants,” Conley said, is “the ability to get close to the animals, to make that empathetic connection, to understand that there's something we can do to improve their lives, to learn about them, to know them.”

The ‘best views’

The Scholars experience is only one facet of the academy. Many of its programs are offered to children and families from historically underserved communities.

“While a lot of our programs are off-site — our ZAP! Zoo Adventure Passport program, King Explorers are all community-based — we like to get them here, and now they've got a nice space to come and do projects and programs as well on-site,” Conley said in a welcoming new lounge.

The modern main classroom has a presentation screen, a mix of furniture, a kitchenette, and “one of the best views, I think, any classroom anywhere ever will have,” Conley said.

The zoo is home to western lowland gorillas, considered a critically endangered species in the wild. Some have been sitting on a ledge near a second-floor terrace.

“I'm just so excited to see, even as I'm looking out here, the gorillas could be right there,” said Julia Ullegue, a rising senior at Prospect High School from Arlington Heights. “It's so cool, and I think it's going to be really great for all the Scholars.”

Monarrez and Jocelyn Herman, an incoming junior at Libertyville High School, both say they have seen themselves grow through the Scholars program.

“That’s how I figured out I want to go into zoology,” Herman said. “It’s just a great community.”