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ISG+ Final Report: What we learned at the Oregon Coast Aquarium
This guest post by Teresa Mealy of Oregon Coast Aquarium is the final update on their Innovative Solutions Grants+ project, which put teens in the driver's seat of a peer-targeted conservation campaign! Thank you and congrats to Teresa, Kerry Carlin-Morgan, and everyone at the Aquarium for your great work. Letting youth lead the way The Oregon Coast Aquarium, with generous support from The Ocean Project, endeavored to understand how to connect teens to ocean issues and then propel them to action. The Aquarium selected four highly motivated Youth Volunteers to spearhead the project and, ultimately, devise a social marketing campaign that would connect local teens with community action. Throughout 2014 and into 2015, these youth, who called themselves the MOANA Group (Making Ocean Acidification Nationally Aware), researched, studied and shared the science of ocean acidification. They examined ocean acidification through the lens of community based social marketing, identified specific actions that local teens could do on their own to positively impact the marine ecosystem, and then looked to the opportunities available in classroom visits and social media. Taking the lead, they created #Unplug4OA to see if the could engage and inspire their peers. Over 750 students have heard their call, and the movement is just getting started! Advice for similar projects Here are a few key takeaways for other aquariums and zoos that might be considering something similar: Focus on action: A direct call to action proved very impactful when engaging a teen audience, especially when tied to a moderate introduction to the science. Too much science and issue information tended to be overwhelming, bogging down the presentation and taking the focus away from action. Youth are awesome: Youth volunteers who were already invested in the Aquarium’s mission provided a great resource, as that allows you to jump ahead and focus on empowering them to create a campaign that will engage their peers. Moreover, their peers were impressed to find out that high school students who volunteer at the Aquarium are confident in leadership roles and empowered to teach about ocean issues. Give youth a chance: Giving teens control of the design and implementation of a project can be risky (and intimidating) but is well worth it. Teens feel not only empowered, but take ownership of the project and are highly invested in its success. Read on for more details on this innovative project: Dreaming Big Here at the Aquarium, we wanted our youth volunteers to feel empowered to communicate to their peers about ocean acidification. We wanted these teens to be agents of change, and teach local youth about ocean acidification (OA), their connection to OA and its impact on their communities. Most importantly with this project, we wanted to ensure that every teenager the campaign reached recognized in turn that their actions can make a difference to help address OA. To empower these teens to act as confident advocates, we challenged them to spearhead the campaign’s research, creation and implementation. We gave them the freedom to direct the entire creative and design process of this social marketing project. Typically, a campaign like this - from the approach to the ask to the evaluation - would have been carefully crafted by staff for the teens just to implement, so turning control over to the teens from the start was exciting and innovative, yet also risky and somewhat daunting. Turning It Over to the Teens The MOANA Group already had the facts about OA, but we knew that it would take more than that for them to create a campaign, so we contracted with a social marketing consultant to teach them how to design a compelling, action-motivating campaign. Action Research’s President, Jennifer Tabinico, developed a course for the youth volunteers to learn about this specialized marketing process and coached the teens through the extensive process of developing their campaign. The teens polled their peers to understand what actions are feasible for the typical teenager to take to minimize their impact on OA, and what are the barriers and benefits to implementation of each action. The training this grant funded taught the MOANA Group that a key to the community based social marketing framework is that the "asks" must be as directly related to the audience as possible. Their research led the teens to conclude that asking their peers to unplug cell phone chargers, game consuls and other electronics would be the most relatable solution with the greatest potential impact. With a call to action identified, the MOANA Group started working through the creative process to identify engagement opportunities, and develop memorable slogans and reminder devices. They decided the best place to reach their target audience would be through outreach programs that would take them into middle and high school classrooms. The youth volunteers designed a flexible program that could adapt to discussion or presentation style formats, depending on each class’s needs. The teens again took the lead when it came time to implement their ideas. They arranged presentation times and presented portions of, or the entire program, to their peers. To assess their audiences’ prior understanding, they asked them to jot down what they knew about ocean acidification, and what they could do about it. At the end of each program, MOANA Group introduced their "ask" - asking their peers to unplug cell phone chargers, game consuls and other electronics as a step that helps address the issue - and shared their experience developing the campaign. They also called on the audience to spread the campaign’s influence by posting on social media, using #Unplug4OA. Following the program, the student audience was surveyed about what they could recall from the presentation and if they took action. Surveys were collected from the school either two weeks or two months after the presentation. Armed with these results, the MOANA Group was able to assess the impact their campaign made. Changes, challenges and connections The campaign’s target audience was high school students, but an early opportunity arose when a few teachers encouraged the group also to present to their middle school students. This provided an opportunity to broaden the audience, but it did require some changes to the dynamics of the presentation. Middle school students were more interested in participating in the presentation, and more inclined to ask questions than high school students. However when presenting to middle schools, we had to adapt our program to include some basic science concepts which high school students usually understand (E.g. what is pH, production of CO2, etc.). And when surveying students afterward, we found that the high school students were more likely to remember the targeted call to action, whereas the middle school students were more likely to remember general concepts from the presentation, but not the ask. After the first classroom presentations, the MOANA Group also began to see some small changes they would need to make to their campaign's approach. One immediately apparent concern was accessibility to social media. Some schools had firewall systems that blocked students from accessing social media on their phones while on school grounds. They had also assumed most students were using social media, but when the opportunity arose to speak to middle school students, they found a measurable distinction between middle and high school students, with a higher proportion of the latter promoting #Unplug4OA. These challenges proved to be some of the more difficult to overcome in the campaign; but these efforts were worthwhile incorporating social media into the program helped the campaign reach teens who did not see the MOANA Group’s presentation. When youth volunteers were not available to lead presentations, myself and other Aquarium staff filled their role. This provided us another variable to consider while assessing the impact of the campaign. We were a bit surprised that the adult led programs did seem to achieve the same response to calls to action and social media sharing. But we also couldn't help but notice that the youth volunteers engaged their peers in discussions about ocean acidification, their classmates appeared to connect more passionately with the issue. Both the adult and teen presenters proved impactful, but the messages and the ask seemed to resonate more strongly with middle and high school students when their peers presented the issue and campaign. For Aquarium staff, we were very comfortable with the idea of a campaign that would involve our teen volunteers asking others to join in taking action on an issue like OA, as that we'd done before. But it was quite new to hand the reins to the youth volunteers, giving them the leadership over the campaign and have staff play the support role. It also was a switch for the youth volunteers to go from an adult led programs to one they would lead, but with the right tools and time to communicate, they took to the challenge and made us all proud. They exuded enthusiasm and motivation, passion and drive while working on the campaign, but, that said, we learned that we needed to allocate more time for the development and implementation process, which took longer than originally estimated, largely due to conflicting schedules with the youth volunteers’ school and extracurricular activities. Yet even with the constantly changing timeline, the youth volunteers remained positive and committed to the campaign, which was encouraging to all the adults working to support them. These challenges provided lessons for the MOANA Group, and that, coupled with what they created, prepares them for the future. The campaign’s impact: youth are awesome! Despite the challenges and changes, the results gathered showed the campaign made an impact. While we are still sifting though all of the data we collected, our preliminary results shows that the students in the audience have been able to recall many aspects of the presentation. Even weeks later, the majority recalled the topic or theme, citing the impact of ocean acidification on sea life or repeating one of the campaign catch phrases. More impressively: Approximately 50% of the students recalled unplugging electronics as an action they can take to reduce CO2 absorbed by the ocean (and about 35% say that it is an action they now do!). Even more impactful, approximately 40% of students also reported that they shared information they learned from the MOANA Group with their friends or family. And the students’ anecdotes supported their survey responses. In keeping with the findings and recommendations from the public opinion research by The Ocean Project and others, the focus of the presentation was on the call to action, with just brief background on the science of OA, and this helped shape the results. Most of the survey responses included specific examples of behavior changes, like one student who said her mom unplugged her hair straightener after hearing about the MOANA Group presentation at dinner. The youth volunteers also demonstrated a measurable increase in confidence when talking about ocean acidification with their peers, as well as when asking their peers to change their behavior. One MOANA Group member said, “I've seen the OA swag all over my school and many of my peers have been very willing to learn. Many have told me they have begun unplugging their appliances and chargers.” Another said he felt, “Empower(ed). I also feel special that I can confidently talk about the topic and I have the tools to show others how they can help as well.” Empowerment seemed to echo through their final evaluations, another youth volunteer said, “I feel empowered. I love educating my peers and if I can alter their habits I will do my best to do so. This program has helped me get out of my comfort zone, and I'm very thankful for that.” So Bright, We Need to Wear Shades The Oregon Coast Aquarium is thankful for the opportunity this grant gave the youth volunteers. Thanks to their new found empowerment we already are planning for more projects just around the bend. In addition to continuing the outreach program in the schools, we plan to share our community based social marketing and ocean acidification experiences with other local and regional teen groups, and also are sharing more of our experience with the team from the Woodland Park Zoo as they embark on their own Innovative Solutions+ Grant. We also hope to continue to expand our program to the Hispanic community, another key audience identified in the public opinion research and a demographic which makes up 30% of students in our local high school. With so many future goals, the close of this project feels like we are just wrapping up stage one, and launching into for a bright future. Photo of Oregon Coast Aquarium
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Seas the Day in March – Green Transportation Choices
”Everywhere is walking distance if you have…
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ISG+ New Project: Florida Aquarium investigates a co-designed ‘ask’ for engagement
This guest post, by VP of Education Debbi Stone at Florida Aquarium is the first in a 3-part series on their Innovative Solutions Grants+ project. The Aquarium's project asks "Can we gain valuable insights about how to engage an underrepresented audience by working together to design the approach?" The Ask As a mission-based institution committed to learning as much as we can about “The Ask,” our shorthand phrase for promoting conservation action to our visitors, we have spent the last several years focusing on questions such as: What individual behaviors actually make a positive difference in ocean conservation? What actually motivates visitors to join us in taking these actions? How do we track the success of our efforts? How do we engage previously underrepresented audiences? Using resources and insights from The Ocean Project, Frameworks Institute, the National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation (NNOCCI), Climate Interpreter, and more, we have made strides on the above, yet we also recognize that we still have a lot to learn. Through our recently awarded Innovative Solutions Grant, we especially want to learn more about how to answer that last question about engaging underrepresented audiences. An Underserved/Untargeted Audience The fastest growing population segment in our region is Hispanic. Between the 2000 and 2010 censuses, the Hispanic population in our home county of Hillsborough grew by over 70%. Even with that knowledge, we had not been strategically focusing on how to align our goal of increasing visitor actions via The Ask with engaging the largest growing population with which to work. We hypothesize that if this population continues to grow with such robustness, it represents an audience with which we have a tremendous opportunity to collaborate and affect positive change on a large scale. We were therefore excited to receive awarded the Innovative Solutions Grant to explore deepening our connection with this important audience by working with a prominently Hispanic Title 1 elementary school to create a platform, and answer questions about how best to increase visitor actions. Why Youth as a Launch Point? As data summarized in The Ocean Project’s Special Youth Report in America, the Ocean, and Climate Change: New Research Insights for Conservation, Awareness, and Action, suggest that youth have a strong influence on household conservation behaviors, our project strives to equip students to be catalysts in their households. As the data further suggest that aquariums are trusted sources of information about ocean issues, we believe that we are in a powerful position to effect positive change. Furthermore, additional research by The Ocean Project and others underscores the way in which those in households where English is the second language also tend to have a strong, but often unmet, interest in conservation issues. Project Summary Through our Innovative Solutions project, we plan to work with approximately 200 elementary students at a predominantly Hispanic school to help us develop engagement ideas that include family involvement and participation. We are also, thanks to the grant, able to provide materials in Spanish, something that has been a challenge for us in the past. Throughout this school year, we will work with teachers and students to develop projects that directly connect the community to action…or again, what we call The Ask. We will work with grade level teachers to help students at various grade levels create action-based projects that they find meaningful to them and that we think are appropriate for the Aquarium. And the students will be encouraged involve their families along the way. In May, the students and their families will be invited to attend a Family Science Day at The Florida Aquarium, where they will share their ideas with our visitors, and we can all gauge the response. Reality Check? Are we trying to accomplish too much with this one school? We all - aquarium staff, teachers and students alike - are excited about the idea of working together but are already learning that it can be a challenge to fit a project like this into an increasingly busy school schedule. In our next blog, we’ll share more about barriers we're encountering (and working through) as well as where we are in our efforts and how we are proceeding. We will keep you posted as our work progresses!
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ISG+ Final Report: What we learned at the New England Aquarium
This guest post by Heather Deschenes of New England Aquarium, the final in a 3-part series on the aquarium's Innovative Solutions Grants+ project, is a look at what the aquarium learned from their efforts. Thank you to Heather and everyone who helped at the aquarium for your hard work! The Ocean Project’s Innovative Solutions grant enabled us to try a different approach to training our teen volunteers to engage various audiences about the steps those audiences might take reduce their fossil fuel use. Our hypothesis was that if the teens were able to convey their knowledge about climate change, then audiences would be more willing to act. Here's a summary of what we did, including the successes we had, as well as the lessons we learned. Beginning the project Our original vision for the ClimaTeens program was to develop an educational program that aimed to empower teens to stimulate an increase in community dialogue, planning, and action to address the issues of climate change. We aimed to develop the youth participants’ understanding of the science behind and impacts associated with global climate change, and a stronger sense of confidence in sharing this knowledge with peers, adults, and community leaders. Our goal was to create two academic year cohorts of students who would take part in monthly meetings where they would develop their content knowledge on the subject area, have opportunities to practice developing presentations and making connections with other youth audiences in the in the City of Boston and Aquarium visitors. To form the first cohort of ClimaTeens, we recruited those who were already participating in other NEAq youth programs. We assembled a group of 12 who had varying levels of knowledge of climate change science and impacts. We experimented with the idea that, once all were up to speed, the teens could and would engage deeply with a topic as large and potentially scary as climate change. We found that the answer, overwhelmingly, was that they could and they would, even going so far as to talk with EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, as well as Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey, and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh! We set a goal of having the teens develop additional presentations, blog posts and videos that would all encourage a wide audience to join a citywide effort to reduce carbon emissions called Greenovate Boston. We anticipated being able to measure impacts of ClimaTEENS efforts because the Greenovate website was to be enabled with a number of built in evaluative properties. We were really excited about the opportunities presented by the partnership with Greenovate, and the web tools in particular, but as the project progressed, it became apparent that our timelines were not aligned. While Greenovate was making significant progress in developing the City’s Climate Action Plan (CAP), their website plans were much slower to take off. A change of plans By the fall of 2014, we knew we needed to change course, and we decided to put greater emphasis on having the teens presenting directly to aquarium visitors rather than the broader community. We also launched the second academic year cohort of ClimaTeens (retaining five alumni from the first cohort). So in addition to starting the process of training the new cohort, which had grown from 12 – 20 youth, we also started gathering data to support our evaluation strategy through a monthly program called Blue Discovery Family Days (BDFD.) Each BDFD has a theme (such as Lobsters, Octopus, or Sustainable Seafood) and an array of hands-on activities are set up either inside or outside the aquarium, depending on weather. Teens run most of the stations, with support from adult educators. For a series of fall and winter BDFD events this academic year, the ClimaTeens had a table in the same area as the other activities, but with a climate change-specific activity. The teens used interactives NEAq developed as part of a NOAA-funded climate education grant a few years ago. These activities feature either basic climate science, such as carbon sinks and sources, or human impacts, such as an ‘eco-footprint’ quiz. The teens were encouraged to convey the science and also engage visitors in solutions-oriented conversations, touching on three specific actions the visitors might take (wash laundry in cold water, request a home energy audit, and/or connect with a community-based effort such as Greenovate). After visitors had the opportunity to interact with the teens, an adult educator would ask a random sample of visitors leaving that area if they were willing to complete a short survey on an iPad. The surveys asked some attitudinal questions and also asked visitors to indicate their willingness to take the three possible actions the teens were mentioning. Since NEAq surveys visitors on many subjects, we were already aware that our visitorship is generally interested in and concerned about climate change, but we didn't know if the interactions with the teens would increase a visitor's willingness to take action. Looking at the data While the data we gathered was not statistically significant, it did suggest that interacting with the teens could indeed help expand our visitor's willingness to act. When we compared the responses of those who did interact with the teens ("yes group") and those who did not ("no group"), we couldn't help but notice that those in the "yes group" seemed to be coming into the conversations with a higher level of interest in the issue. A strikingly high 26% of those in the "yes group" reported that they already were involved with a community-based effort such as Greenovate, whereas that number dropped to 8% for those in the "no group." At the same time, we still saw some evidence that interacting with the teens was having an impact. When we compared yes and no group responses on the other two actions - washing clothes in cold water and requesting a home energy audit - approximately equal percentages from each group reported that they were already taking those actions prior to their visit. However, among those who were not already taking those steps prior to their visit, those who interacted with one of the teens did report a notably higher willingness to take these actions in the future. What we still do not know, however, is the extent to which that difference in response was due to the provision of new information about the solution steps, new information about the underlying problem, and/or the personal nature of the interactions. Our "gut sense" would be that the impact we saw was largely attributable to an already interested audience being provided with new information about solution steps they could take by a group of enthusiastic interpreters. But as they say in academia, "more study is needed!" Over the course of our ClimaTeens adventure, we have learned that our teens are capable of understanding large and complex topics with a mixture of wisdom, enthusiasm, and energy that inspires the adults around them. We also have learned that getting a group of young people around a table to share pizza and ideas can be silly, deep, chaotic, and ultimately incredibly rewarding. One note of caution for our colleagues in the Aquarium and Zoo community looking into this kind of program, however - the same teens that are deeply engaged leaders in your institution are most likely deeply engaged students, athletes, performers, and leaders in their school and home communities, and they may become overcommitted. Other lessons learned Coordinating with a community wide effort on a scale like Greenovate can be, despite the best of intentions on both sides, really tough, especially with the limited availability of the teens themselves and just the basic operational differences between organizations We learned the teens didn’t need in-depth training on climate science but rather needed the time to build their confidence in speaking about climate basics. The teens often expressed that building their own social identity was more important that learning the scientific information. Having the teens already invested in our organizational mission was really helpful. For example, our second cohort of teens (formed in fall 2014) has had considerable attrition because many of participants were new to the Aquarium and the expectations on behalf of the program and the teens themselves, were very different. When asked what lies ahead for ClimaTeens, there are some unknowns (program funding) but there are also some certainties. The youth who continue to participate in the program are really emerging as model ocean stewards, something that is core to our institutional mission and goals. These youth all have some very positive traits in common; they see involvement with ocean-helping activities as crucial part of life, many are actively pursuing schooling that will help them to work in an ocean/environment related career, they are well educated on ocean issues and can speak articulately about the issues, frequently talking with others and sharing their passion to help raise awareness. We are very excited to see what these teens will do next and really appreciate that this grant helped us to empower a group of young people who understand their connections to the ocean and participate as a community of informed citizens who are inspired to change the world.
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Seas the Day in February – Community Connections
“Never doubt that a small group of…
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New 2015 research reveals an ocean of opportunities
This is a guest post by Jim Hekkers of…
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ISG+ New Project: Philadelphia Zoo asks, “Can an exhibit change visitor behavior at home?”
This guest post by Wei Ying Wong of
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ISG+ Final Report: What we learned at the NC Aquariums
This guest post by Windy Arey-Kent of NC Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores is the final in a 3-part series on NC Aquariums’ Innovative Solutions Grants+ project, aimed at testing different approaches to engaging guests for conservation action at aquariums. This blog post is a look at what NC Aquariums learned as a result of this project. Thank you to Windy and everyone who helped at NC Aquariums for your hard work! The North Carolina Aquariums were awarded a $16,000 Innovative Solutions Grant to see if our visitors would be interested in joining us in the purchase of Renewable Energy Certificate’s (REC’s) to help address the problems of climate change and ocean acidification. We were awarded the grant in December, 2013 and the project was funded through December, 2014. With this support, we were able to implement programs at each of our four sites and take four very different approaches to engaging visitors in this conservation ask during our high visitation months of May-September. My experience working with The Ocean Project was extremely positive from the beginning. Working with the staff, in advance, to research and identify the best ways to approach a project of this scope, with 4 facilities, was extremely useful. I even had issues submitting the grant online, due to my inexperience with some technology formats, and staff at The Ocean Project worked with me directly to answer my questions so that I could successfully complete the application. This process was so beneficial, not only for me, but for my staff and our facility. The lessons learned through this project were significant and pertinent to our departmental goals, plus we had a lot of fun! Why we tried What we learned Our advice to others Why we tried For our aquariums, our interest in doing this stemmed from our mission, which is to inspire appreciation and conservation of NC’s aquatic ecosystems, and also because it fit very nicely with a new strategic initiative at the NC Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores, where our education department was focusing very intently on visitor’s conservation actions. And on the specific issue of climate change, we were really interested in an opportunity to move our visitors beyond “changing a light bulb" to a more meaningful action around energy choice, and this led us to RECs. According to the EPA, “One of the simplest and most effective ways to reduce your carbon footprint is to purchase REC’s, (which) are critical, effective and valuable instruments for expanding renewable energy in the U.S.” For our visitors, our working assumption, based on research by The Ocean Project and others, was that they'd welcome information about how to be part of the solution, and "go green." So with this effort, here was an opportunity for us to do just that by supporting green power by buying a REC for the amount of energy typically used by a home in one month, while also helping our Aquariums achieve our own green energy goals though a "watt-for-watt" match from our partner, Greenlight Energy. (A secondary goal of the project was for each site to acquire enough REC’s to allow us to each become EPA Green Power Partners by obtaining at least 25% of our energy from renewables.) We wanted to see what would work best, not only in terms of inspiring our visitors to take action, but also in terms of ensuring a positive staff and visitor experience. To do this, we tried different approaches at each site, yet kept a lot of the variables the same, most notably the ‘ask’ of purchasing a REC. What we learned The lessons learned were meaningful and pertinent: we were able to ascertain that our visitors expect and appreciate it when we suggest ways for them to help, and seem most inspired to act on behalf of conservation when we model those behaviors as a staff and facility, and relate the importance of those behaviors back to our animals and our mission. The most straightforward measure was the amount of RECs purchased, and the table below shows our total kWh of green energy purchased, therefore avoiding the equivalent of that energy from traditional sources. While we did not reach our goal of becoming a Green Power Partner with the EPA, we learned a lot about how to go about obtaining that goal for our facilities in the future. NC Aquarium facilities kWh Purchased kWh Matched by Greenlight Energy Total kWh Fort Fisher 76,798 76,798 153,596 Pine Knoll Shores 21,870 21,870 43,740 Roanoke Island 14,731 14,731 29,461 Jennette's Pier 80,601 80,601 161,202 194,000 194,000 387,999* But the more interesting insights came to us when looking at the above together with the results of the visitor surveys we conducted during the three-month trial period. We found that at all sites, visitors were indeed welcoming of suggestions of how to help solve ocean problems, and very interested in the topic of energy choice. The sites surveyed more than 1,100 visitors, with three key findings: 92% agreed (slightly agree to strongly agree) that “learning ways people like me can help conserve the ocean and its animals makes this aquarium a better place to visit” 92% agreed (slightly agree to strongly agree) that “this aquarium is a good source of information for people like me to learn ways to help conserve the ocean and its animals” 83% were interested (somewhat to very interested) in learning about "options for conserving energy or energy choices available to me at my home” As for the staff’s response to the project, feedback from staff suggested that visitors were unfamiliar and easily confused by the REC concept, leading the Aquariums to conclude that alternate clean energy /energy saving asks should be explored. By comparing and contrasting their experiences, the Aquariums also learned some valuable lessons: When making an active appeal – staff or volunteers asking visitors to consider action through the purchase of RECs – the efforts were much more effective when interpreters used auditorium programs and dive shows to connect the ask with the animals and appeal to widely shared values, such as a belief in American ingenuity and a concern for the future. In contrast, interpreters were far less effective when they tried to intercept visitors outside of these programs and provide more detailed information about clean energy and RECs. "Our visitors expect and appreciate it when we suggest ways for them to help, and seem most inspired to act when we model those behaviors as a staff and facility, and relate the importance of those behaviors back to our animals and our mission." When making a passive appeal – relying on exhibits or displays that did not include staff interpretation – the key appeared to be demonstrating the Aquarium's own commitment to taking action on the issue, as the presence of working wind turbines was cited as the reason why support was so strong at Jennette's Pier. In comparison, similar messaging about the aquarium's interest in the issue had much less impact when combined with a nonfunctioning windmill display. This finding was more of a surprise, as although visitors spent very little time at the exhibits and did not have the benefit of an interpreter's explanation, those who saw the actual wind turbines at Jennette's Pier seemed to know immediately and support the Aquarium's commitment to clean energy. Visitors were inclined to take action then and there, with little evidence that they would follow up and take action later via, for example, a web link. Notably, visitors wanted the action to be simple, with a strong inclination to donate, and a resistance to completing a sign-up form, though the latter may reflect in part some public concern about privacy as well as some visitor confusion around RECs. The project, unfortunately, came to a premature end due to circumstances well beyond our team's control. Even though the overwhelming majority of visitors and staff were strongly supportive, as exemplified in the aforementioned survey data, one influential person from within the small minority of objectors was able to shut the project down. This individual, a writer affiliated with a private foundation that is vocal in its opposition to the scientific consensus on climate change--complained about the project in a blog post that was circulated within conservative circles, and reached state officials who, in turn, asked that the Aquariums end the project after Labor Day. Our advice to others For facilities that are interested in engaging your visitors in conservation “asks” related to energy and energy choice, I have several recommendations for you. Be sure that you have an overall organizational commitment to this objective. While we feel that energy choice is something that everyone should be interested in and knowledgeable about, the conversations around energy choice, like those around climate change, can become politicized. So having organizational ‘buy-in’ to your project is key. Fully investigate and be prepared to showcase your facilities sustainability efforts. Visitors really committed to participating when they saw that the facility was also committed to the cause. Relating your conservation messages and actions back to your facility and your collections is an important and effective method to use to engage visitors in your efforts. Don’t be afraid to take on seemingly “impossible” tasks, jump in and engage your visitors in conversations around ‘difficult’ topics. It is important for us all to gauge our comfort levels and push our staff to figure out the best time and place to have these important and meaningful conversations.
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Seas the Day in January – Get Inspired
“The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.” - Blaise Pascal “For whatever we lose (like a you or a me) it’s always ourselves we find in the sea” -e.e. cummings With a new year beginning it's a perfect time to get inspired by something. The ocean has long since been a source of inspiration. The chopping waves and mysterious deeps have generated many stories, songs, and other works of art. We depend on and look to the sea for everything from food to the air we breathe. The ocean helps us and now it's time to get motivated to help our ocean. By Courtney McGough flickr user courtneymcgough Read about the ocean There is a lot going on within the ocean and you can use a book to get informed about it and how to help! You can learn about the issues our ocean is facing, such as ocean acidification and overfishing, and then join the conversation and help with conservation! There are a lot of great books of fiction and poetry about the ocean for you to read as well. You can see the inspiration the sea has had on others, and hopefully get inspired too. Quick tip: If you want to read about the ocean, check out The Ocean Project's list of great ocean books. Or you can ask your local librarian for suggestions. By: Jeroen Elfferich, flickr user jeroen020 Meet the animals You can spend time this month seeing ocean animals up close. Why not visit a local aquarium, zoo, museum, or nature center this weekend? You can see some of the marine animals you are learning about up close. And if you have the time, you can also ask staff about volunteering part-time at any of these institutions and contribute to their efforts to conserve the ocean. Take action It's a great time to start planning action to help the ocean. Check out World Oceans Day - the international day of ocean celebration and action held every June 8th! You can hold an event to get your community involved, attend an event and show your support, or engage with others online. Cover photo by Teddy Llovet, flickr user teddyllovet The Seas the Day initiative encourages and empowers people to take ocean conservation personally and get involved with others to help collectively. Each month, we feature a new conservation theme with ways to help so come back regularly for more ocean-helping ideas and tips! Created mainly to support our partner ZAMs (Zoos, Aquariums, and Museums and other visitor-serving organizations involved in our growing network) to inspire and motivate conservation action, Seas the Day is for you to tailor for your own purposes. Please use any or all of the content verbatim and re-post on your own blog, social media channels, website, newsletter, etc. We have a large database of action tips and related content for you to use so let us know what’s most helpful and what other action-able types of information and resources we can provide to enhance your conservation efforts.
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