The Historical Evolution of Zoo Education as ‘Children’s Culture’

In recent years, zoos have been expected to fulfill a role as cultural bases through provision of education. Zoo education in Japan is said to have begun with Ueno Zoo’s ‘Children’s Zoo’ and ‘Summer Schools’. However, transport company-managed zoo, ‘Itozu Yuen’ (now Itozu-no-Mori Zoological Park) has been running its summer school, ‘Rinkan Gakuen,’ with the development of children’s culture as its goal, for more than eighty years, since before WWII. Focusing on Takehiko Kurushima and Itozu’s Rinkan Gakuen, this paper will follow the evolution of the relationship between children’s culture and zoo education, which has given birth to its own unique educational activities, and clarify the way in which educational activities which nurture children’s culture have been able to continue.