Who pooped?

The Minnesota Zoo needed to drive kids to the Africa! exhibit. The challenge was indifference. You have to stand out from a million other things already competing for a kid’s attention.

Every kid on earth is fascinated by poop. African animals have wildly different kinds of it. Put those two facts together and you have a kid’s undivided attention.

A website called WhoPooped.org turned animal droppings into a game kids couldn’t resist, guided by dung beetle hosts with gloriously realistic sound effects. Kids identified African animals by their droppings, then finished the lesson to earn a Poopology certificate. Twin Cities DJs picked it up. Rachel Maddow featured it on air and tweeted it to 600,000 followers. We stopped counting foreign country mentions at 15.