Monterey Bay Aquarium Conservation Messages Front-End Evaluation - Juliana

          The goal of this front-end evaluation done at the Monterey Bay Aquarium was to better understand their visitors’ awareness and engagement in conservation related issues, and how they respond to conservation messages. They hoped to answer the following questions:

·      Are visitors aware of issues affecting the ocean and how they can help?

·      What motivates visitors to take actions to help the ocean? What actions are considered easier or more difficult than others? What actions are more or less impactful?

·      How do messages in the aquarium affect visitors’ attitudes towards conservation?

Two different methods were used in order to answer these questions. The first was a Conservation Action Card Sort, which helped to determine which conservation actions visitors participated in and why, whether they believe these actions are easy or difficult, as well as the impact visitors believe these actions have. The second method was a Concept Map and Message Framing, which gave more information on visitors’ awareness of ocean conservation actions, as well as visitors’ responses to conservation messaging.

            For the first question, they found that participants had a high awareness of plastic pollution as one of the largest threats to the ocean, with many participants also mentioning climate change as a major threat to the ocean. More participants were aware of actions they could take related to plastic pollution, while participants had a more difficult time coming up with and engaging in actions related to climate change. For the third question, most participants’ responses were positive regarding conservation messaging about plastic use and sustainable seafood. Some participants mentioned that they feel sad about issues facing the ocean, and feeling negatively towards animals in captivity. Lastly, participants believe that “If we don’t do something soon, the damage being done to the ocean may be irreparable,” was the most impactful conservation message, as it added a sense of urgency to the situation. Many participants responded that they expected to learn how to help the ocean during their visit to the aquarium.

I was interested in this evaluation because I am interested in marine biology and I hope to get more involved in ocean conservation issues as an informal educator. I was also curious to learn about what visitors’ attitudes are towards aquariums because I know that many people feel negatively towards zoos and aquariums for keeping animals in captivity, even though a lot of times the mission of those institutions is conservation and protecting these animals. I was happy to learn that many of the aquarium’s visitors are open and even expect to learn more about ocean conservation issues and what actions they can take. A further addition to this evaluation that I think would be interesting would be adding a question similar to what we did this past week at MOXI, to determine whether the main motivation of guests visiting the aquarium is learning about conservation, or something else.