| Abstract |
- Zoos, aquariums and other free-choice/informal education settings offer the public
opportunities to interact with live animals in exhibits through animal encounters and/or touch
experiences designed to carry a conservation mission. Many of these institutions are accredited
by the American Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) and the World Association of Zoos
and Aquariums (WAZA), which require them to develop mission statements with explicit
conservation education goals. Although there are conflicting views within and outside the field
about keeping animals in captivity for the purpose of education, researchers and practitioners
generally agree that live animal interactions can result in powerful learning experiences with the
potential to impact visitors’ conservation awareness, attitudes and behavior. However, is there
evidence that family visitors talk about conservation during these experiences? Well-documented
research focused on biological talk by families in natural history museums suggests that visitors
frequently talk about where an animal lives, how it moves, what it eats, and how it feels,
demonstrating that these experiences promote biological talk and also have implications for
learning science skills and knowledge. Such findings are critical to designing effective learning
experiences for families that take into account what they bring to the learning experience in
terms of their interests, backgrounds and understanding. In this multidisciplinary study, I examine what counts as conservation talk among both families, themselves, and professionals
working in conservation-related arenas. I do so by first examining the cultural, historical, and
philosophical underlays to institutions such as zoos, aquariums and other free-choice/informal
education settings that offer live animal encounters and exhibits. My intent to engage families
was to document if they see live animal exhibits as places to talk about conservation, if they talk
about conservation at such exhibits, and ultimately how they talk about conservation when
prompted. Additionally, I analyzed the discourse of conservation-related professionals to
understand what they expect conservation talk among families at live animal exhibits to look like
as well as how they, themselves, talk when prompted to think generally about conservation.
During the first phase of this mixed-method study, I conducted semi-structured interviews with
recruited families (n=10), totaling 38 individuals, and a focus group interview with professionals
(n=10) who work in conservation-related arenas. These interviews included a concept mapping
activity, from which I developed an observation rubric for “what counts as conservation talk”
from the point of view of the participating families and professionals. In the second phase of this
study, I applied the observation rubric to the video-recorded live animal experiences of
additional families (n=40) and to the conservation Discourse of professionals themselves.
The analysis of concept maps and interviews revealed the larger cultural Discourses that
people draw upon when they think and talk about conservation, animals and learning. Results
showed that the conservation Discourses families and professionals drew upon when prompted to
think and talk about conservation in general are analogous in the sense that both families and
professionals connect to and speak from their environmental worldviews and perceived values.
Families talked about strategies and solutions to major environmental issues they identified as
ethically crucial to undertake, highlighting the role of education efforts for conservation. Professionals largely discussed ethical topics, also highlighting the importance of education
efforts and practices in promoting pro-conservation behaviors. In other words, both families’ and
professionals’ conservation Discourse were values-based. However, when professionals were
prompted to define what conservation talk would look like for families visiting zoos and
aquariums and interacting with live animals, they expected family conservation talk to be about
animals at large, their biology, relating ideas about ecosystems, and recognizing their own
connections to nature, but not about values. Rather, they felt that an important role of
conservation education approaches is to support families in changing their values. This
perspective is congruent with the field’s traditional model of supporting visitors’ development
from learning information about a topic, which then presumably results in changes in attitudes
and feelings about the topic, which then ultimately results in behavior change, in the case of this
study, promoting pro-conservation behaviors. This traditional view was seen also in the
professionals’ concept maps of expected family conservation talk, which reflected linear models
of conservation learning and dialogue among families that were more prescriptive in nature and
expected families to be less able and willing than they are to talk about conservation from a
values and ethics perspective. As demonstrated by the complex network of ideas families
constructed in their concept maps to explain their perspectives on conservation, they seemed
ready to engage in action-driven conversations as far as talking about solutions and strategies to
address environmental issues. Furthermore, their conservation talk sums up the values they
assign to nature. However, since professionals developing exhibits underestimate families’
interest and abilities to discuss conservation in these ways, many exhibits do not support
conservation talk, and as a result, families do not always clearly recognize the conservation
mission embedded in live animal experiences.
These findings suggest that live animal exhibits and family engagement efforts will only
meaningfully advance families’ understanding of conservation and/or afford opportunities for
them to develop reflective conservation talk if there is intentional conservation messaging built
upon people’s own environmental worldviews and the values they assign to nature. I argue that
top-down, linear theories of change based on the tenet that the goal of conservation education is
to build visitors’ knowledge in order to change their values do not work. Instead, researchers and
practitioners working in this area will be far more successful (and fulfilled) by understanding
people’s environmental worldviews, existing values, and cultural constructions of nature as
starting points for conversation and important vehicles in the construction of visitors’ reflective
understanding of conservation and its mission. I argue for a paradigmatic shift for conservation
education research and practice to utilize community engaged methods and consider
multidisciplinary insights through a critical environmental literacy approach to conservation
education research and practice.
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