Participating in a Citizen Science Monitoring Program: Implications for Environmental Education

Abstract

Tourism is of growing economical importance to many nations, in particular for developing countries. Although tourism is an important economic vehicle for the host country, its continued growth has led to on-going concerns about its environmental sustainability. Coastal and marine tourism can directly affect the environment through direct and indirect tourist activities. For these reasons tourism sector needs practical actions of sustainability. Several studies have shown how education minimizes the impact on and is proactive for, preserving the natural resources. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of a citizen science program to improve the environmental education of the volunteers, by means of questionnaires provided to participants to a volunteer-based Red Sea coral reef monitoring program (STEproject). Fifteen multiple-choice questions evaluated the level of knowledge on the basic coral reef biology and ecology and the awareness on the impact of human behaviour on the environment. Volunteers filled in questionnaires twice, once at the beginning, before being involved in the project and again at the end of their stay, after several days participation in the program. We found that the participation in STEproject significantly increased both the knowledge of coral reef biology and ecology and the awareness of human behavioural impacts on the environment, but was more effective on the former. We also detected that tourists with a higher education level have a higher initial level of environmental education than less educated people and that the project was more effective on divers than snorkelers. This study has emphasized that citizen science projects have an important and effective educational value and has suggested that tourism and diving stakeholders should increase their commitment and efforts to these programs

Promoting Data Collection in Pollinator Citizen Science Projects

“…Data from the US Census Bureau (2016) show that 32.8% of individuals in our study region are without a college education, but this demographic represented less than 10% of our study volunteers. Indeed, our study shows that engaging participants from all levels of educational attainment remains a problem across citizen science projects and should thus be of increased consideration for researchers (Brossard, Lewenstein, and Bonney 2011;Crall et al 2013;Branchini et al 2015;Wright et al 2015;Domroese and Johnson 2017;Roman et al 2017).…”

“…The level of educational attainment (highest level of education) of the citizen scientist also could affect data collection. Data on the level of educational attainment of citizen scientists is not lacking in the literature (Brossard, Lewenstein, and Bonney 2011;Branchini et al 2015;Domroese and Johnson 2017), although most studies used these data to assess whether volunteers are representative of a broader population (Crall et al 2013), or to assess recruitment shortcomings (Wright et al 2015). While citizen scientists often have higher levels of educational attainment than the general population (Domroese and Johnson 2017;Roman et al 2017), there is scant evidence as to whether the level of educational attainment affects propensity for data collection.…”

Participant Outcomes of Biodiversity Citizen Science Projects: A Systematic Literature Review

“…One article presented outcomes assessed by the researchers; four articles presented both self-reported and assessed outcomes. In these five articles, outcomes were 'assessed' either through closed-ended (multiple choice) questions [52][53][54] or through closed-and open-ended questions [32]. Haywood et al [20] assessed identification skills through the verification of data submitted by participants.…”

Diving for science ‐ science for diving: volunteer scuba divers support science and conservation in the Mediterranean Sea

“…This may generate a motivation to act, which in the context of a CS initiative can be promptly matched by an opportunity to do so. Therefore, CS underwater monitoring projects can both deliver a strong educational and conservation message and encourage behavioural changes (including underwater) (Branchini et al , ). Environmental education has also been linked to increased environmental stewardship and a sense of ownership, in turn crucial to the public acceptance of and compliance with management decisions (Evans et al , ; McKinley and Fletcher, ).…”