Children's Conservation Research Articles

Direct, indirect, and vicarious nature experiences collectively predict preadolescents' self-reported nature connectedness and conservation behaviors.

The quantity and context of children's nature experiences are undergoing significant changes, exacerbating a pervasive negative cycle that could impact future conservation efforts. Therefore, it is essential to conduct further studies on the potential impacts of these changes on children's willingness to engage in conservation practices. We surveyed 2,175 preadolescents (aged 9-12) from rural and city schools in Hangzhou, Kunming, and Xishuangbanna, China, regarding their nature experiences (direct, indirect, and vicarious) and self-reported nature connectedness and conservation behaviors. We found that children in urban areas have higher frequencies of indirect and vicarious experiences than those in rural areas, with some direct nature experiences seldom reported among city respondents. Direct, indirect, and vicarious nature experiences significantly predicted children's conservation behavior and collectively provided the highest predictive power for conservation behavior. Direct and vicarious experiences were strongly correlated with pro-nature behavior, and the latter with pro-environmental behavior. Emotional and cognitive connection with nature positively predicted conservation behavior, influenced by location and residence type. This study reveals that different types of nature experiences shape children's current conservation behaviors in China.

Individual and community-level impacts of the unarmed all-women Black Mamba Anti-Poaching Unit.

In a conservation setting where escalating tension has been the norm, the unarmed primarily female-composed Black Mambas Anti-Poaching Unit (BMAPU) in South Africa are a successful counterpoint in that they have decimated poaching using only diplomacy and patrols. We sought to understand if the BMAPU is achieving its secondary goal of influencing support for conservation and wildlife among the nearby populace via community-based conservation actions including outreach and environmental education. We also determined the impact that the program has on the Mambas themselves. Using a mixed-methods survey we conducted structured in-person interviews with 120 community members from four communities where the women of the BMAPU live, and among all the women that were on active duty in the BMAPU at the time of the surveys. We found that all participants in the BMAPU program reported improved self and community perception of their societal role as financial providers, as well as their sense of agency and self-efficacy, relative to before becoming rangers. We also found that having BMAPU rangers living in the communities by itself did not contribute to community-level support for wildlife conservation or protected areas. However, one community with both a large-scale children's conservation education program and an equitable distribution of financial benefits paid by the nearby conservation concessionaires was significantly more supportive of wildlife conservation and protected areas than the other three. Further research to parse the relative contributions of the two contributing factors of education and financial benefit would help clarify their relative contributions. From this study, we conclude that a combination of child-focused conservation education programs and equitable distribution of financial benefits leads to increased community support for wildlife, conservation, and protected natural areas, and decreases support for poaching.

Environmental self-identity partially mediates the effects of exposure and connection to nature on urban children's conservation behaviours

As crises of biodiversity loss and climate change have intensified, so too have efforts to promote human behaviours that ameliorate these global stressors. Leveraging people's connectedness with nature is proposed as a means of inspiring pro-nature behaviours at a personal and societal scale. However, it is only recently that studies have begun to characterise the specific mechanistic drivers of connectedness and its behavioural outcomes. A separate body of research shows that self-identities motivate pro-environmental behaviours. Here, we simultaneously investigate the effects of affective connection to nature and environmental self-identity on urban children's conservation behaviours. We also evaluate passive exposure, active learning, and nature-focused activities as predictors of connectedness. Using confirmatory composite analysis and path analysis in tandem, we analyse survey responses from 1037 children and adolescents attending 16 schools throughout Sydney, Australia. In this dataset, connection to nature had a large effect on commitment to conservation behaviours, half of which was mediated by environmental self-identity. Time spent in green and blue spaces had a weak direct effect on connection to nature. Most of its impact was mediated by regular engagement with nature-focused activities (e.g., looking for wild animals), which were the strongest predictors of connectedness alongside frequency of outdoor learning and reading about nature. Greenness of school catchment areas was negatively associated with connectedness, likely because children connect with nature at a finer scale and even indoors, as suggested by the moderate positive effect of household biodiversity on connectedness. Overall, we demonstrate that not all forms of contact with nature are equal when it comes to strengthening the kinds of affective bonds that lead urban children to identify with and act for nature.

Evaluating Children's Conservation Biology Learning at the Zoo

Millions of children visit zoos every year with parents or schools to encounter wildlife firsthand. Public conservation education is a requirement for membership in professional zoo associations. However, in recent years zoos have been criticized for failing to educate the public on conservation issues and related biological concepts, such as animal adaptation to habitats. I used matched pre- and postvisit mixed methods questionnaires to investigate the educational value of zoo visits for children aged 7-15 years. The questionnaires gathered qualitative data from these individuals, including zoo-related thoughts and an annotated drawing of a habitat. A content analysis of these qualitative data produced the quantitative data reported in this article. I evaluated the relative learning outcomes of educator-guided and unguided zoo visits at London Zoo, both in terms of learning about conservation biology (measured by annotated drawings) and changing attitudes toward wildlife conservation (measured using thought-listing data). Forty-one percent of educator-guided visits and 34% of unguided visits resulted in conservation biology-related learning. Negative changes in children's understanding of animals and their habitats were more prevalent in unguided zoo visits. Overall, my results show the potential educational value of visiting zoos for children. However, they also suggest that zoos' standard unguided interpretive materials are insufficient for achieving the best outcomes for visiting children. These results support a theoretical model of conservation biology learning that frames conservation educators as toolmakers who develop conceptual resources to enhance children's understanding of science.

An event-related brain potential study of children's conservation

To investigate the relationship between cortical activation and conservation ability, 22 children were divided into two groups based on their performance on a standard Piagetian Conservation test. Visual evoked potentials were recorded while children performed a weight conservation task. A bilateral, frontal-distributed, broad late positive component at 900 ms differed between non-conserving and conserving children, with non-conservers having a larger amplitude. The significant interaction between conservation ability and hemisphere on the amplitude of this component suggests that inferior generators gradually move from central to right frontal-central while conservation level increases. The results indicate the existence of an ERP component that reflects weight conservation ability in children and a possible relationship between conservation ability and brain activation.

Pedagogical adequacy of children's conservation explanations.

Pedagogical adequacy of children's conservation explanations.

Pedagogical adequacy of children's conservation explanations.

Pedagogical adequacy of children's conservation explanations.

Partially sighted children's conservation development.

Partially sighted children's conservation development.

A social learning explanation for age-related changes in children's conceptual behavior

A social learning explanation for children's conceptual development is proposed. Recent training research on conservation is discussed, and it is concluded that it fails to support three key assumptions underlying Piaget's theory (a) Children are able to learn to conserve without being “in transition,” (b) nonconservation experiences are successful in promoting developmentally immature cognitive functioning, and (c) there is evidence of inconsistencies in children's cognitive functioning across tasks assessing the same cognitive stage. Two aspects of children's conservation responding are explained according to a social learning position: decalages and the shift from perceptual cues to quantitative cues. This explanation involves consideration of cognitive factors such as prior rule learning as well as impinging social experience.

Feedback, Rule Knowledge, and Conservation Learning

BRAINERD, CHARLES J. Feedback, Rule Knowledge, and Conservation Learning. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1977, 48, 404-411. The effects of judgment-contingent feedback and prior knowledge of 3 rules on children's conservation learning were examined. Existing data do not allow one to decide between competing interpretations of the effects of these variables. Data on feedback, though extensive, can be interpreted as evidence of concept learning or a response set. Data on 3 rules which are theoretically relevant to conservation (identity, inversion, compensation) are sketchy. An aptitude x treatment experiment was conducted in which the aptitude variables were nonconservers' knowledge of the 3 rules and the treatment variable was judgment-contingent feedback. Feedback training produced generalized and temporally stable improvements in equivalence conservation that, due to correlated improvements in difference conservation, could not be interpreted as a response set. 1 of the rules (inversion) was functionally related to learning, but the others were not. The observed developmental ordering of the rules was inversion --> compensation/qualitative identity --> quantitative identity.

Factorial Analysis of Children's Conservation Task Performance

WINKELMANN, WOLFGANG. Factorial Analysis of Children's Conservation Task Performance. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1974, 45, 843-848. 31 conservation items, some using concrete materials and some in paper form, were administered to 281 5-8-year-old children. A factorial analysis yielded 4 factors: factor I-conservation of substance equality or identity (CSE), factor IIconservation of substance inequality (CSI), factor III---conservation of number equality (CNE), and factor IV--conservation of number inequality (CNI). These factors were confirmed in separate analyses for the concrete items and for the paper items. The factor structure was cross-validated in a second sample of 280 children aged 5-8 to whom the paper items were given with modified instructions. These data call the Piagetian concept of structures d'ensemble and stage into question.

Factorial Analysis of Children's Conservation Task Performance

Factorial Analysis of Children's Conservation Task Performance

Kinds of Questions and Types of Conservation Tasks as Related to Children's Conservation Responses

Kinds of Questions and Types of Conservation Tasks as Related to Children's Conservation Responses