{"id":6886,"date":"2017-02-06T07:48:36","date_gmt":"2017-02-06T07:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6886"},"modified":"2017-02-06T07:48:50","modified_gmt":"2017-02-06T07:48:50","slug":"viewing-humans-and-other-animals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2017\/02\/06\/viewing-humans-and-other-animals\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking at humans and other animals"},"content":{"rendered":"

A day at the zoo - not a favourite place of mine. \u00a0I went for a Joint School Grounds & Natural Environment Sectors LOtC Partnership<\/em>\u00a0meeting and the main animals I saw were human (mostly young), flamingoes and moorhens. \u00a0The last of these had broken in for a\u00a0day's free-loading.<\/p>\n

The meeting's main focus was a presentation by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) about an HSBC-funded enquiry\u00a0into children's experiences at three WWT centres as part of school visits.<\/p>\n

Although the session was titled:<\/p>\n

'Measuring the long-term impact on pupils' attitudes and behaviour towards the environment following a visit to a WWT Wetland Centre<\/em>'<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

... the power point presentation said it was about the impacts that visits to wetland centres have on children's 'attitude to nature<\/em>'. \u00a0But it wasn't really about attitude (or nature), as no\u00a0validated attitudinal scales were used in the enquiry.<\/p>\n

There were\u00a0child questionnaire surveys before, after, and long after the event, and focus groups. \u00a0500 children from 19 schools were involved. \u00a0Most\u00a0children said they'd had a good time. \u00a0Schools were chosen, and children's data compared, on the basis of high \/ low free school meal (FSM) uptake and this was expected to do all the heavy lifting as far as data analysis was concerned. \u00a0The ideal, of course, was that\u00a0those children from high FSM uptake schools had\u00a0their attitudes (or whatever) improved\u00a0by the experience, and that these remained elevated. \u00a0The validity of this depends on those parents poor enough to get FSM having no interest in wildlife \/ nature \/ etc, and on richer ones having that interest. \u00a0Just how valid that is, escapes me, but I'll ask. \u00a0Well, in the end, whatever was being measured, this didn't happen. \u00a0The researchers had also hoped to compare data on the basis of ethnicity but too many children has declined to say which category they fell into for that to be possible. \u00a0Good for them, say I. \u00a0I rather hope that some might have refused to tick the (inevitably binary) gender box as well. \u00a0This was something you were made to do if you wanted to use the zoo's 'free' WiFi.<\/p>\n

It was, of course, all very \"interesting\", but I've no idea what anyone learned from these visits \u2013 or from the questionnaire enquiry. \u00a0One of the questions asked something about looking after \/ taking care of \"the places where wildlife lives\". \u00a0The implication of this phraseology is that you have to make\u00a0a special trip to these places \u2013 a visit to a WWT centre, for example. \u00a0But what about the wildlife (literally and metaphorically) on your doorstep? \u00a0Doesn't that need watching out for as well? \u00a0Of course, if you run wildlife centres, zoos, petting farms, etc, it's not really in your interests to stress the local.<\/p>\n

I said (above) that I'd no idea what anyone learned from these visits, but that's not quite the case. \u00a0We were told, for example, that one activity involved stroking the feathers on a swan, and so it seems reasonable to conclude that a learning outcome was that it's ok to touch\u00a0a swan. \u00a0Well, best not to try\u00a0that anywhere near where I live or you'll be in for a big surprise. \u00a0And this raises the issue of just how wild the wildlife was that was encountered in these experiences? \u00a0 But we ran out of time to discuss such issues \u2013 actually, the two WWT presenters\u00a0ran out of time talking about it. \u00a0Next time, maybe ...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A day at the zoo - not a favourite place of mine. \u00a0I went for a Joint School Grounds & Natural Environment Sectors LOtC Partnership\u00a0meeting and the main animals I saw were human (mostly young), flamingoes and moorhens. \u00a0The last...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6886\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}