Influence of experience, interest, knowledge and learning source on children’s attitudes towards extensive grassland conservation

Špur, Natalija; Škornik, Sonja; Šorgo, Andrej

doi:10.1017/s0376892920000119

Cited by 4 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…In our results, the change in the behavioral intention of the students was frequently associated with the cognitive component factors and mostly the 'biology and health knowledge' factor, reinforcing the impact of our educational activity. Similar results were obtained in previous studies where the learning achieved during educational activities directly and/or indirectly influenced students' attitudes towards specific species (34)(35)(36)(37)67).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…After the implementation of the activity, a significant increase in students choosing the biodiverse bag was observed. These positive results towards the conservation of intraspecific diversity after the implementation of an educational activity are similar with other studies' results on children's attitudes towards certain species such as human parasites, birds, reptiles or extensive grassland (34)(35)(36)(37). However, the percentage of students who chose the biodiverse bag in the post-test (33.33%) suggests that the approach could be improved.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

“…This highlights a potential role for science education to influence students' attitudes, by allowing students to engage with and elaborate around strong arguments and contributing, among other things, to emotional engagement and knowledge acquisition, which is expected to directly impact the affective and cognitive component of attitude respectively. Some studies have shown that educational activities can have a positive impact on students' attitudes, such as towards human parasites (34), birds (35), reptiles (36) and conservation of extensive grasslands (37). Furthermore, a survey administered to elementary school students showed that factors such as gender, species knowledge, preferred leisure activities, and family members' involvement in nature protection organizations are a significant predictor of children's attitudes toward insects (38).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Tasting to preserve: An educational activity to promote children’s positive attitudes towards intraspecific diversity conservation

Pessoa

Aboim

Afonso

et al. 2023

Preprint

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On the edge of causing the sixth big mass extinction event, the development of positive attitudes towards the conservation of intraspecific diversity from early ages is essential to overcome the biodiversity crisis we currently face. However, there is no information available on elementary school students' attitudes toward intraspecific diversity conservation nor is there a framework available to perform such analysis. For this study we designed, implemented, and evaluated an educational activity planned for third graders (8 to 13 years old) to explore the intraspecific diversity of vegetables and to promote healthy eating habits. Additionally, a framework was developed to evaluate students' attitudes towards intraspecific diversity conservation and applied to semi-structured interviews conducted with students before and after engaging in the educational activity. In this paper we present a reliable framework, developed aligned with the ABC model of attitudes, based on literature, and adapted to elementary school students' responses, to evaluate students' attitudes toward intraspecific diversity. Our results show that, before the educational activity, most students choose a non-biodiverse option, justifying this choice with the affective component of attitudes: mostly emotional factors but also aesthetic and social/cultural factors. After the educational activity, we observed a significant increase in the frequency of students that choose the biodiverse option and that justified it with the cognitive component of attitudes: mainly with biology and health knowledge factors, but also with economic and ethical knowledge factors. Our findings support the positive impact of educational activities that explore vegetable varieties on students' attitudes toward intraspecific diversity conservation.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Tasting to preserve: An educational activity to promote children’s positive attitudes towards intraspecific diversity conservation

Pessoa

Aboim

Afonso

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Some studies have shown that educational activities can have a positive impact on students’ attitudes, such as towards human parasites [ 34 ], birds [ 35 ], reptiles [ 36 ] and conservation of extensive grasslands [ 37 ]. Furthermore, a survey was administered to elementary school students showed that factors such as gender, species knowledge, preferred leisure activities, and family members’ involvement in nature protection organizations are a significant predictor of children’s attitudes toward insects [ 38 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tasting to preserve: An educational activity to promote children’s positive attitudes towards intraspecific diversity conservation

Pessoa,

Aboim,

Afonso

et al. 2024

PLoS ONE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

On the edge of causing the sixth big mass extinction event, the development of positive attitudes towards the conservation of intraspecific diversity from early ages is essential to overcome the biodiversity crisis we currently face. However, there is no information available on elementary school students’ attitudes toward intraspecific diversity conservation nor is there a framework available to perform such analysis. For this study we designed, implemented, and evaluated an educational activity planned for third graders (8 to 13 years old) to explore the intraspecific diversity of vegetables and promote healthy eating habits. Additionally, a framework was developed to evaluate students’ attitudes towards intraspecific diversity conservation and applied to semi-structured interviews conducted with students before and after engaging in the educational activity. In this paper we present a reliable framework, developed aligned with the ABC model of attitudes, based on literature, and adapted to elementary school students’ responses, to evaluate students’ attitudes toward intraspecific diversity. Our results show that, before the educational activity, most students choose a non-biodiverse option, justifying this choice with the affective component of attitudes: mostly emotional factors but also aesthetic and social/cultural factors. After the educational activity, we observed a significant increase in the frequency of students that choose the biodiverse option and that justified it with the cognitive component of attitudes: mainly with biology and health knowledge factors, but also with economic and ethical knowledge factors. Our findings support the positive impact of educational activities that explore vegetable varieties on students’ attitudes toward intraspecific diversity conservation. This activity may also be used to foster education for sustainability and address socioscientific issues aligned with diverse sustainable development goals.

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“…An effective awareness-raising strategy could be to target children living in the landscape, which could facilitate biocentric reasoning towards pangolins from a young age (i.e. promote the ideology of the intrinsic value of pangolins that is separate from their worth as a commodity; Špur et al, 2020;Kahn & Kellert, 2002). This approach could also foster protective attitudes towards pangolins among adults (Damerell et al, 2013).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Stakeholder preferences for pangolin conservation interventions in south‐east Nigeria

Emogor,

Zabala,

Adaje

et al. 2023

People and Nature

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The overexploitation of biological resources severely threatens many species, requiring urgent and effective conservation interventions. Such interventions sometimes require governance structures that incorporate pluralist perspectives and collaborative decision‐making, especially in complex, multi‐faceted and multi‐scale issues like the illegal trade in pangolins. We used Q‐methodology to provide evidence to inform interventions for pangolin conservation in south‐east Nigeria. We sampled stakeholder groups associated with pangolin use and protection, including hunters, wild meat traders and Nigeria Customs Service employees, to elicit their opinion and knowledge on the use and perceptions of pangolins and their preferences for interventions to reduce pangolin decline. We found that the local consumption of pangolin meat as food is the primary driver of poaching in the region. This contradicts popular opinions that pangolins are specifically targeted for international trade, revealing an opportunity for site‐level behaviour change interventions. The different stakeholder groups identified awareness‐raising campaigns, law enforcement, community stewardship programs and ecotourism as preferred interventions, whose effectiveness we attempted to assess using reported case studies. We observed different perspectives between people associated with pangolin poaching and use (predominantly those living around pangolin habitats, including hunters and wild meat traders) and those working to protect them (such as conservation organisations and Nigeria Customs Service employees). For example, the first group supported community stewardship programs, while the latter preferred awareness‐raising and law enforcement efforts. This divergence in perspectives underpins the need for a combination of targeted interventions at the site level to engage different stakeholders while highlighting the potential challenges to collaborative decision‐making for species threatened by illegal wildlife trade. Policy implications. Our results stress the importance of targeted and context‐specific conservation interventions. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

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Influence of experience, interest, knowledge and learning source on children’s attitudes towards extensive grassland conservation

Cited by 4 publications

References 32 publications

Tasting to preserve: An educational activity to promote children’s positive attitudes towards intraspecific diversity conservation

Tasting to preserve: An educational activity to promote children’s positive attitudes towards intraspecific diversity conservation

Tasting to preserve: An educational activity to promote children’s positive attitudes towards intraspecific diversity conservation

Stakeholder preferences for pangolin conservation interventions in south‐east Nigeria

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