Abstract
Zoological collections are rapidly changing from a place of entertainment to centers of education. Many zoological collections run holiday and weekend clubs with activities aimed at inspiring and enthusing the next generation. The COVID-19 pandemic saw zoological collections across the world closing, leading a need for alternative educational content. Edinburgh Zoo, UK converted their summer school to a virtual provision. This provided a unique opportunity to determine the effectiveness of online zoological education by investigating if engagement levels differ for family groups when education is ‘live’, ‘recorded’ or ‘activity’ based. A total of 235 participants signed up for the Virtual Summer School, which comprised of 46 separate activities. Submissions, comments and polls were coded for content level and activity type. Results show that the overall engagement was higher for the live sessions compared to the recorded content; however, the content level was higher for activities. Content level increased over the week and there was a higher reported nature appreciation at the end of the Virtual Summer School. These findings provided evidence to suggest that online holiday zoo education can engage and inspire and gives insight on how to maximize the engagement and knowledge acquisition when using these online platforms.
Highlights
Conservation education is part of the remit of the modern zoo and by fostering pro environmental behaviors, zoos fulfil their role in support of conservation [1]
Over the four weeks of the Virtual Summer School, 395 interactions were coded from the 235 participants that registered for the Virtual Summer School
The results suggest a mixture of discovery types enables both higher participant engagement with nature-based activities and higher levels of complexity in work produced, ensuring families are both inspired and have the opportunity to take their learning deeper
Summary
Conservation education is part of the remit of the modern zoo and by fostering pro environmental behaviors, zoos fulfil their role in support of conservation [1]. Informal education is delivered via immersive exhibits and interpretation, and public engagement via keeper talks and handling sessions; whereas formal education includes sessions catered for schools and other groups, outreach sessions and regular clubs [3]. The latter, being run either weekly, monthly or during the holidays, can provide an opportunity for children to learn, not just animal and conservation related information but social skills and cooperation in a fun and engaging environment [4,5].
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