Jensen Eric A, Moss Andrew, Gusset Markus
Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom.
Chester Zoo, Chester, United Kingdom.
Zoo Biol. 2017 Jul;36(4):294-297. doi: 10.1002/zoo.21372. Epub 2017 Jun 21.
Zoos and aquariums aim to achieve lasting impact on their public audiences' awareness of biodiversity, its value, and the steps they can take to conserve it. Here, we evaluate the long-term educational impact of visits to zoos and aquariums on biodiversity understanding and knowledge of actions to help protect biodiversity. A minimum of two years after completing a repeated-measures survey before and after visiting a zoo or aquarium, the same participants were invited to take part in a follow-up online survey. Despite the small number of respondents (n = 161), our study may still represent the best available quantitative evidence pertaining to zoo and aquarium visits' long-term educational impact. We found that improvements in respondents' biodiversity understanding from pre- to post-visit leveled off, staying unchanged in the follow-up survey. In contrast, the improved knowledge of actions to help protect biodiversity from pre- to post-visit showed further improvement from post-visit to delayed post-visit follow-up survey. These results suggest that the immediate positive effects of a zoo or aquarium visit on biodiversity-related learning outcomes may be long lasting and even help lay the groundwork for further improvements over an extended period of time following the visit.
动物园和水族馆旨在对公众观众关于生物多样性的认识、其价值以及他们可以采取的保护措施产生持久影响。在此，我们评估参观动物园和水族馆对生物多样性理解以及对有助于保护生物多样性的行动的认识所产生的长期教育影响。在完成对参观动物园或水族馆前后的重复测量调查至少两年后，邀请相同的参与者参加后续在线调查。尽管受访者数量较少（n = 161），但我们的研究仍可能代表有关动物园和水族馆参观的长期教育影响的最佳现有定量证据。我们发现，受访者从参观前到参观后的生物多样性理解改善趋于平稳，在后续调查中保持不变。相比之下，从参观前到参观后对有助于保护生物多样性的行动的认识有所提高，并且从参观后到延迟的参观后后续调查中显示出进一步的提高。这些结果表明，参观动物园或水族馆对与生物多样性相关的学习成果的即时积极影响可能是持久的，甚至有助于为参观后的较长时间内的进一步改善奠定基础。
