Victorian Education Minister, Hon. Bronwyn Pike MP, visited Melbourne Zoo to announce an additional $3 million in funding for Victorian cultural organisations to continue innovative digital resources for Victorian school students. Projects such as Melbourne Zoo's Primate Behaviour Research, with its live web cameras, engages students in developing skills, knowledge and behaviors for the future.

The digital resources are located on the FUSE (Find, Use, Share, Educate) portal that supports kids to explore and solve complex issues facing our society through the use of digital technology.

Melbourne Zoo is bringing conservation and wildlife to classrooms across the nation through three new projects.

Conservation Mashups: Unsustainable palm oil production in SE Asia is pushing orang-utans to extinction through loss of habitat. At the current rate of clearing the Orang-utan could be extinct within ten years. Kids can access a collection of video clips and images and use an online tool to ‘mash up' their own video to support the Zoo's Don't Palm us Off campaign. They can share videos in an online gallery.

Primate Behaviour Research: Three web cameras have been installed in the Zoo's Orang-utan Sanctuary so students can be part of a Melbourne Zoo research project to study the behaviour of the Zoo's orang-utans and siamangs. Working with zoologists students can remotely study the behaviour of these primates and contribute their observations to the research project in an online environment.

Bushfires & Wildlife Challenge: Students are challenged to ‘improve biodiversity and reduce fire risk in their community'. With access to a range of online resources including videos of wildlife affected by bushfires and web conference access to Healesville Sanctuary experts (many of who treated wildlife during the recent Black Saturday fires). Students can share videos and discuss their work in an online forum.