Research Symposium

BIO

Sabrina Doty is a second-year Biology pre-vet student with a minor in Chemistry at Florida State University. Her passions include visual art, animal behavior, and environmental science. She conducted research under Professor Rob Duarte within the College of Fine Arts to create technologically focused enrichment toys for zoo animals through sculptural techniques and innovation. This allowed her to combine her interest in visual art with her animal-driven academic career. Sabrina currently works as a kennel technician where she learns essential animal handling techniques and skills for both domestic and exotic animals. After graduating from FSU with a Bachelor of Science in Biology, she aims to gain her DVM (Doctor of Veterinary Medicine) to help endangered species affected by climate change through conservation work.

Toys For Animals: Enrichment Through Collaboration

Abstract

Animal enrichment is defined as species-specific stimuli that allow animals to express natural behaviors that improve their physical and psychological well-being. This study focuses on analyzing how the collaboration during the 2025 Fall Semester between FSU students and the Jacksonville Zoo & Gardens benefited both the students' learning and the zoo's animal enrichment program through research. While zoo-university partnerships are encouraged, the specific dynamics of how they succeed are not well-documented. By evaluating this partnership, future collaborations can implement sustainable operations that allow the growth of interorganizational relations between research universities and zoos. The project began with students collaborating with zookeepers to build enrichment items for animals. Qualtrics surveys were sent to participants once the project was complete, and the responses were analyzed to identify overall impressions and commonalities in the participants’ thoughts about the project’s process. The students mentioned learning a lot about animal behavior, enrichment, working with materials, and innovative thinking, but some of their critiques and challenges included not allocating enough time to complete the finished product and having trouble transitioning from the prototyping to the construction stage. The zoo staff mentioned feeling extremely impressed and grateful for the partnership and finished objects, but disclosed struggling with time management and internal communication challenges. The results showed the value in continuing this partnership and how to improve the project in the upcoming semesters. Moving forward, we will focus on researching how technology has been used for enrichment and finding a way to implement it into the zoo program.

Keywords: animal enrichment zoo toys