Doctoral School of Biology, Institute of Biology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, 1117 Budapest, Hungary.
Department of Education, Cultural Heritage and Tourism, Laboratory of Protistology and Biology Education, University of Macerata, Italy.
Eur J Protistol. 2024 Aug;95:126094. doi: 10.1016/j.ejop.2024.126094. Epub 2024 Jun 1.
Despite their high abundance and wide distribution in ecosystems, most protists remain unknown to the public. Although science communication approaches were developed in historical times to raise public awareness of these 'enigmatic' taxa, many aspects have not been considered in the spotlight of modern techniques. We present selected ideas and activities on how to attract the public to unicellular eukaryotes. We give examples of how protists can be included in educational work. We explain that trained non-experts can understand and teach others how to recognize protists, where they live, in which habitats they can be found, what they look like and why they are important. Consequently, members of the public can learn how environmental threats impact not only the lives of protists but also ours, e.g., by the accumulation of microplastics through an aquatic food web, up to fish used for human consumption. We suggest age-appropriate methods for application in workshops on protist recognition.
尽管原生动物在生态系统中数量丰富且分布广泛，但大多数仍不为公众所了解。尽管在历史上已经开发出科学传播方法来提高公众对这些“神秘”分类群的认识，但在现代技术的关注下，许多方面仍未得到考虑。我们提出了一些吸引公众关注单细胞真核生物的想法和活动。我们举例说明了如何将原生动物纳入教育工作。我们解释说，经过培训的非专业人员可以理解并教导其他人如何识别原生动物、它们的栖息地、可以在哪些栖息地找到它们、它们的外观以及为什么它们很重要。因此，公众可以了解环境威胁不仅如何影响原生动物的生命，也影响我们的生命，例如，通过水生食物网积累微塑料，直到用于人类食用的鱼类。我们建议采用适合年龄的方法，将其应用于原生动物识别的研讨会中。
