Co-Creation with the Disability Community

Hosted by Lincoln Park Zoo

Interactive accessible sign shaped like a gorilla

Event Description: Lincoln Park Zoo staff will share their model and practice of co-creating interpretive signage with people with disabilities. Each step of the process, from focus groups to prototyping to final evaluation, involved zoo staff and community partners working together to create unique and broadly accessible interpretation. Learn how this process changed and integrated new practices for accessibility not only in interpretation, but in programming, infrastructure, and more.

This event has concluded. A recording will be posted at a later date.

Archived Event Speakers

Price
Lincoln Park Zoo Senior Director of Learning & Guest Engagement

Allison Price is a white middle-aged woman with long reddish-brown hair. She is wearing glasses and a blue shirt and is seated in white room with a green-leafed potted plant behind her.

As senior director of learning and guest engagement, Allison oversees Lincoln Park Zoo’s programming and initiatives for students and teachers, campers, and people with disabilities. She also oversees the on-grounds learning experience, from chats and demonstrations to exhibit signage, and is a certified interpretive planner with the National Association for Interpretation. Her expertise includes nature play programming, exhibit development, and guest experience; she brings a learner- and visitor-centered approach to how programs and experiences are designed. Allison is a former chair of the Association of Zoos and Aquarium’s Conservation Education Committee, and currently serves as the vice chair of the AZA annual conference program committee and an advisor to the Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake SAFE program. She holds an MS in Science and Technolgy Studies from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and a BA in Journalism and Spanish from Butler University.

Bill Green
Lincoln Park Zoo Hart Prins Fund Accessibility & Inclusion Manager and Cultural Access Collaborative Steering Committee Co-Chair

Bill is a white man in his 40’s with short, dark hair and beard, wearing round glasses. He is pictured in a blue dress shirt seated in front of green leafy plants at the zoo and smiling to camera.

As the Hart Prins Fund Accessibility & Inclusion Manager at Lincoln Park Zoo, Bill uses his experience from working in the disability community to foster accessibility and inclusion in all environments where people engage with the zoo. Personal experience also informs Bill’s work. Since birth, he has been low vision. He has also been a lifelong enthusiast of zoos and museums and the diverse ways people interact with these spaces. Bill has consulted with many cultural institutions in Chicago.

Deidre Keen

Chicago Public School

Deidre Headshot: A person with long, light brown hair and long earrings smiling at the camera.

A little about me..

I am the librarian and tech teacher at a Chicago Public School teaching students in k-8th grade. I  have been teaching for 23 years. I have sensorineural hearing loss in both years and wear cochlear implants that help me to hear ! I have been president of a nonprofit organization called HLAA Chicago Lincoln Park for 10 years, that helps others advocate for themselves to better their lives living with hearing loss. Lincoln Park Zoo offered me a unique opportunity to advocate for those like me by collaborating with them on creating accessible wayside signs.