The Oregon Zoo in Washington Park offers visitors the chance to see large animals such as elephants, rhinos and lions, but its new education center – now under construction – will focus on all things small.

Brent Shelby, project manager for the zoo, said visitors to the center will be able to learn about smaller species in a large exhibit hall, called the Nature Exploration Station. There they will see Western pond turtles, which are endangered, and which zoo staff raise until they are big enough to be released into the wild. Butterflies and a new insect zoo also will be featured.

“The idea behind the whole facility is that small things matter,” he said. “That’s related to baby turtles and insects, but also small conservation actions any one person can do. If a number a people take action it will have much larger of an impact.”

People will be able to learn just how much impact they can have, Shelby said, through an interactive exhibit showing how their actions affect wildlife.

“It’s where you can say, ‘I want to help bumblebees or polar bears,’ and they have a list of actions you can take,” he said.

For example, registering to stop junk mail or switching from fluorescent lights to LED lights can have a positive impact on nature, Shelby said.

“It’s a bunch of actions that might seem small, but when you think about the multitude of people who come through the zoo it’s a much bigger impact,” he said. “Large animals get a lot of attention elsewhere in the zoo, but this is a location where we can focus on some of the smaller animals.”

Zoos are also places of education, Shelby said, and the education center will have four new classrooms and creative learning labs “to engage students of all ages in journeys within and beyond the bounds of the Oregon Zoo.”

The 20,000-square-foot facility will be divided into two buildings and include a central plaza with an outdoor café, a learning garden and a nature playground. The center will also house a 150-seat auditorium accessible when the zoo is closed.

Fortis Construction began work in 2015 on the $10.1 million education center, which is being paid for with money from a $125 million bond package approved by voters in 2008. The education center is the fifth bond-funded project; a new veterinary medicine center, a new water-saving filtration system for the penguin exhibit, a new California condor exhibit and the new Elephant Lands were finished previously. Future bond-funded projects include a new polar bear exhibit, currently in the design phase, and new habitats for primates and rhinos.

Also under construction – but not funded by bond money – is a new station for the zoo train.

“We are taking advantage of the fact that the area is under construction and the zoo operations folks came up with the money for a new train station,” Shelby said.

The old train station dates back to 1959, he noted, and did not provide enough of a canopy cover and used “an archaic queuing system.”

To learn more about Oregon Zoo programs and new construction, visit .

Oregon Zoo education center

Location: Washington Park

Cost: $10.1 million

Construction start date: fall 2015

Anticipated completion date: spring 2017

Owner/developer: Oregon Zoo

Architect: Opsis Architecture

Landscape architecture: Jones & Jones

Interpretive displays: Q Magic and Work at Play

Civil engineering: KPFF Consulting Engineers

Structural engineering: Catena Consulting Engineers

Mechanical/electrical engineering: PAE Consulting Engineers

General contractor: Fortis Construction

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