Influence of a Field Trip on the Attitude of Schoolchildren toward Unpopular Organisms: An Experience with Snakes

Abstract

International audienceThe general public prefers to support conservation projects that focus on a few, easily ''loveable'' species; consequently most of biodiversity is neglected. It is essential to redress such bias and to educate children about the value of a wide diversity of organisms, including those labeled by social bias as less appealing. Because snakes are among the most disliked animals, they are suitable candidates for such endeavor. We evaluated the impact of a single field trip on the attitudes of more than 500 schoolchildren. The participants were involved in snake catching and were allowed to manipulate nonvenomous snakes. The organizers limited their intervention to providing natural history information and carefully avoided saying that snakes should be protected. We used pre- and post-field trip questionnaires to gauge the feelings of the children. Although pre-surveys suggested that many schoolchildren like snakes a priori, their attitudes improved following field experience: almost all children declared then that they liked snakes and expressed a strong willingness to protect them. Such change was associated with an increase of the frequency in the responses of the terms linked with affectivity (e.g., ''snakes are cute''. . .). Snake handling was the favorite activity, and physical contact with animals appears to be a crucial element to improve schoolchildren's attitude for an unpopular organism. Our results support the promotion of field trips that include physical contact with wildlife over the current trend in the educational systems that promote virtual approache

Invertebrate disgust reduction in and out of school and its effects on state intrinsic motivation

“…In line with previous work, we here showed that disgust is lower after an intervention with living invertebrates. This is comparable with a study about snakes (Ballouard et al, 2012) and spiders, where Wagler and Wagler (2017) reported that a treatment group with exposure to living spiders exhibited a steady and maintained decrease in the levels of fear, perceived danger and disgust across the time. Concerning snails, snail disgust was significantly reduced by the treatment and this is comparable to another study where a lesson with living snails successfully reduced snail disgust in fifth-graders (Prokop and Fančovičová, 2016).…”

“…Negative emotions, such as anxiety and disgust, are related to lower achievement (Randler et al, 2005) and less willingness to protect disgusting species (Prokop and Fančovičová, 2013), while positive emotions, like interest and well-being are positively related to learning achievement and motivation (Randler et al, 2012b). Disgust reactions are usually hard to unlearn (Kasperbauer, 2015), but studies in clinical settings on phobia (e.g., spider or snake phobia) showed that an intervention with living animals can reduce this phobia, lending support for these types of intervention (Ballouard et al, 2012).…”

A Walk in the Woods: Changing Student Attitudes toward Amphibians and Reptiles

“…Direct interaction with live animals appears to be important as far as producing an attitude change (Morgan & Gramann, 1989;Ballouard et al, 2012). This is consistent with Kolb's Experiential Learning Cycle, which consists of four stages (Kolb, 1984).…”

“…Tomasek, Matthews, and Hall (2005) describe how to sample for reptiles and amphibians using a drift fence array and pitfall traps, and note that through amphibian and reptile sampling, student attitudes are altered, with the students becoming more environmentally aware and more appreciative of amphibians and reptiles (Tomasek et al, 2005). Ballouard, Provost, Barre, and Bonnet (2012) assert that field trips that incorporate hands-on experiences with animals are more impactful when it comes to altering student attitudes than the modern-day trend of providing virtual experiences. The authors used a single snake-catching field trip and some simple snake handling to positively impact the attitudes of 500 school children.…”

“…The authors used a single snake-catching field trip and some simple snake handling to positively impact the attitudes of 500 school children. The hands-on nature of the experience was key in improving student attitude toward a historically "unpopular organism" (Ballouard et al, 2012). The authors' assertion that the hands-on nature of the experience was crucial echoes Morgan and Gramann (1989), who found that enhanced knowledge of snakes alone failed to improve children's attitudes to- suggests that amphibians and reptiles can be used as study organisms for science education and found that working with herpetofauna in the field is "an educational experience which … has more personal impact than textbook descriptions" (p. 82).…”