At least, how it looks so far, after the very initial research.
The Zoo is a place for everybody. Kids, parents, teenagers, lovers, grandparents, schools – a lot of different constellations and interest points. Apart from a few elderly people just hanging out, the majority were there with someone else in a typical set of parents/kids, grandparents/kids grouping. School outings also seemed to be popular.
I observed a constant dialogue between the visitors. Dialogue with a total focus on what they saw and experienced. There seemed to be a great interest to share and get knowledge. Though, I overheard more unanswered questions and unmet thoughts than the opposite.
Do the grown-ups wish they were able to explain better? Do the kids feel heard? And what about the knowledge the kids have?
Having said that, I think that going to the Zoo is not all about learning about the animals, it’s also very much about the dialogue and contact between the visitors. If your granddad tells you some crazy story about some exotic animal, in my book, that would be awesome too. It doesn’t need to be correct, but if you want it to be, it should be easy to access the knowledge.
With these conclusions, focusing on mutual observation and dialogue between the visitors seem obvious. You see, you share, you learn /+ you connect. The thought of helping creating a dialogue seems to be a very strong idea. As I saw in the initial field research, people journey through the Zoo in constant dialogue. But I often found that the dialogue was left with a lot of open and unanswered questions. It is therefore obvious to me that some kind of means to substantiate and validate the dialogue is a big need.
