Children Prioritize Virtual Exotic Biodiversity over Local Biodiversity

Abstract

Environmental education is essential to stem current dramatic biodiversity loss, and childhood is considered as the key period for developing awareness and positive attitudes toward nature. Children are strongly influenced by the media, notably the internet, about biodiversity and conservation issues. However, most media focus on a few iconic, appealing, and usually exotic species. In addition, virtual activities are replacing field experiences. This situation may curb children knowledge and concerns about local biodiversity. Focusing our analyses on local versus exotic species, we examined the level of knowledge and the level of diversity of the animals that French schoolchildren are willing to protect, and whether these perceptions are mainly guided by information available in the internet. For that, we collected and compared two complementary data sets: 1) a questionnaire was administered to schoolchildren to assess their knowledge and consideration to protect animals, 2) an internet content analysis (i.e. Google searching sessions using keywords) was performed to assess which animals are the most often represented. Our results suggest that the knowledge of children and their consideration to protect animal are mainly limited to internet contents, represented by a few exotic and charismatic species. The identification rate of local animals by schoolchildren was meager, suggesting a worrying disconnection from their local environment. Schoolchildren were more prone to protect “virtual” (unseen, exotic) rather than local animal species. Our results reinforce the message that environmental education must also focus on outdoor activities to develop conservation consciousness and concerns about local biodiversity.

La Biodiversidad en el contexto Educativo. Múltiples miradas en el escenario mundial

“…La mayor parte de las investigaciones que se presentan, indagan por el tema de las concepciones y representaciones sociales de la biodiversidad, en estudiantes de la educación básica y media, al igual que en profesores en formación inicial y público en general, con diferentes propósitos, dentro de los que se destacan a) El conocimiento que tiene el público de la biodiversidad y su significado; b) El conocimiento de la biodiversidad local, y c) Las problemáticas asociadas con la pérdida de biodiversidad (Ballouard, et al, 2011;Bizerril, 2004;Bizerril, et al, 2007;Buijs, et al, 2008;Casagrande, 2004;Fen Yen, 2004;Hyseni, 2008;Kelemen, et al, 2011;Kilinc, et al, 2013;Köhler, 1999;Lindemann y Hyseni, 2009;Lindemann, 2009;Moore, et al, 2009;Özsoy, 2010;Schwarz, et al, 2012;Urones, et al, 2010;Yorek, et al, 2008).…”

“…La pérdida de la biodiversidad se constituye en el eje de investigación de varios autores, quienes se interesan por indagar: a) Los conocimientos acerca de las causas y las consecuencias; b) Las actitudes y formas de valorar; c) Su relación en las escalas local-global, y d) Medios de comunicación y fuentes de información (Ballouard, 2007;Ballouard, et al, 2011;Dalelo, 2012;Dikmenli, 2010;Fiebelkorn, et al, 2012;Hunter, et al, 2003;Hyseni, 2008;Jimmy, 2006;Lindemann, et al, 2009;Menzel, et al, 2009;Sadik, et al, 2007;Tanner, 2010;The Gallup Organization Hungary, 2007).…”

Experiencing amphibians: Instruction for biophilia, ecoliteracy, and sustainability.

“…This non-random pattern is an indication of honesty in responses, comprehension in the structure of this module of the MEI, and is evidence of reliability in the feedback (Ballouard, Brischoux, and Bonnet, 2011). The range includes the total number of responses for each module (score >1) from the total of 18 participants that completed the MEI instrument (pre + post) from groups 1-3 (indoors, urban, outdoors).…”

“…One basis for their argument is that species only cover the taxonomic component to biodiversity, whereas the whole of biodiversity includes additional dimensions that are more directly linked and applicable to the functional ecology of the planet (Naeem, Duffy, & Zavaleta, 2012). Even more disconcerting is the observation that children's conservation values tend to reflect the popular, virtual, and exotic species over local species (Ballouard, Brischoux, & Bonnet, 2011), a bias that may persist into adulthood and that removes emphasis from other important dimensions of biodiversity. The prioritization of species for conservation legislation, funding and action has more to do with human psychology than with what is actually relevant to the ecology of the problem.…”

“…Biodiversity is complex, which makes it difficult to manage conceptually and communally without falling victim to some of the numerous psychological phenomena that change our perceptions of conservation value. Examples of psychological phenomena that influence conservation values include the social-psychological phenomena of shifting baselines (Papworth, Coad, & Milner-Gulland, 2009), environmental myopia (Silvertown, Tallowin, Stevens, Power, Morgan, Emmett, Hester et al, 2010), prioritizing virtual exotic species over local biodiversity (Ballouard, Brischoux, & Bonnet, 2011), prioritizing more colourful animals over inconspicuous animals (Prokop & Fancovicova, 2013), priority for different types of landscapes (Ulrich, 1993), and gender and cultural differences (Fuller, Irvine, Devine-Wright, Warren, & Gaston, 2007;Heerwagen & Orians, 1993). I have considered these psychological phenomena in the design of a curriculum geared specifically to support youth engagement with local biodiversity.…”