{"id":107038,"date":"2026-01-06T01:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T01:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/107038\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T01:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T01:36:10","slug":"from-studio-to-habitat-fsu-art-students-design-interactive-animal-enrichment-toys-for-jacksonville-zoo-and-botanical-gardens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/107038\/","title":{"rendered":"From\u00a0studio to\u00a0habitat: FSU art students design interactive\u00a0animal\u00a0enrichment toys for\u00a0Jacksonville Zoo and\u00a0Botanical\u00a0Gardens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Before delivering their toys to the zoo, students researched animal behavior, enrichment\u00a0needs\u00a0and safe materials. At\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.innovation.fsu.edu\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FSU\u2019s Innovation Hub<\/a>, they applied\u00a0design thinking\u00a0framework\u00a0to create and improve prototypes\u00a0that\u00a0incorporate\u00a0expert feedback. Design thinking focuses on a user-centered approach to creative problem-solving.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s very, very rare that our clients are ten-foot-tall animals,\u201d said Kate Casey, a senior dual degree studio art\u00a0and theatre student who created an enrichment toy for giraffes. \u201cWe designed a barrel with a bunch of holes around it in a giraffe pattern with two layers that forces the giraffes to stretch their tongue and exercise their mouth muscles more than they usually would in captivity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Once projects were complete,\u00a0the\u00a0Interspecies Sculpture Studio\u00a0class\u00a0traveled to Jacksonville, where they presented\u00a0the\u00a0enrichment toys to the animals and collaborated with zoo staff to make any necessary adjustments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe creativity behind the design for these items and the quality of the products they were able to produce was far above my expectations,\u201d said Danielle Minkus, senior Bird Keeper at Jacksonville Zoo and Botanical Gardens. \u201cThese students being able to come in, bring a fresh set of eyes, the time and the tools to create all of these things is really awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before delivering their toys to the zoo, students researched animal behavior, enrichment\u00a0needs\u00a0and safe materials. At\u00a0FSU\u2019s Innovation Hub, they&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-107038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}