Ostrava’s zoo is organizing a quiz competition for schools

The education centre at Ostrava’s zoo has been very busy this week. It has been the venue for the Zoo Grand Prix 2018 – an annual quiz competition for schools, featuring thousands of children from all over the region. The zoo has been organizing the competition (in conjunction with the Friends of the Zoo association) for over 45 years!

The competition was launched in the 1970s, before today’s education centre was even built. The event was held in various places – including some quite unusual locations. Photographs from the 1970s show children doing the competition in the outdoor hippo enclosure or inside the monkey house; there was no space to sit down, so they simply leaned against the walls and wrote their answers standing up. It’s clear from the photos that the competition was just as popular back then as it remains today. Many teachers whose classes are participating in this year’s event can remember taking part themselves when they were children. And not just teachers – some of the zoo’s employees, including the director himself, took part in the competition when they were still at school.

The competition is open to children aged 11–15, grouped into teams of five people, and it consists of a series of test questions. The theme of this year’s competition is Meadows and Fields of the Czech Republic. Over 1300 children from more than 70 schools across the entire Moravian-Silesian Region are involved in the 2018 competition. The qualifying round finishes on Friday 23 March. The winners go through to the final round, which will be held on Sunday 8 April. Prizes for the winners have been generously donated by clothing company UAX and cakemaker Ollies. Thank you!