Place-based, data-rich citizen science as a precursor for conservation action
Persistent URL
Author(s)
Haywood, Benjamin K.
Date Issued
May 6, 2016
Abstract
Environmental education strategies have customarily placed substantial focus on enhancing ecological
knowledge and literacy with the hope that, upon discovering relevant facts and concepts, participants
will be better equipped to process and dissect environmental issues and, therefore, make more informed
decisions. The assumption is that informed citizens will become active citizens––enthusiastically lobbying
for, and participating in, conservation-oriented action. We surveyed and interviewed and used performance
data from 432 participants in the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST), a scientifically
rigorous citizen science program, to explore measurable change in and links between understanding and
action. We found that participation in rigorous citizen science was associated with significant increases
in participant knowledge and skills; a greater connection to place and, secondarily, to community; and
an increasing awareness of the relative impact of anthropogenic activities on local ecosystems specifically
through increasing scientific understanding of the ecosystem and factors affecting it. Our results suggest that
a place-based, data-rich experience linked explicitly to local, regional, and global issues can lead tomeasurable
change in individual and collective action, expressed in our case study principally through participation in
citizen science and community action and communication of program results to personal acquaintances
and elected officials. We propose the following tenets of conservation literacy based on emergent themes and
the connections between them explicit in our data: place-based learning creates personal meaning making;
individual experience nested within collective (i.e., program-wide) experience facilitates an understanding of
the ecosystem process and function at local and regional scales; and science-based meaning making creates
informed concern (i.e., the ability to discern both natural and anthropogenic forcing), which allows individuals
to develop a personalized prioritization schema and engage in conservation action.
Journal
Conservation Biology
Department
Environmental Science / Studies
Citation
Haywood, B.K., Parrish, J.K., and Dolliver, J. (2016) Place-based and data-rich citizen science as a precursor for conservation action. Conservation Biology 30(3), 476-486. doi:10.1111/cobi.12702
Publisher
Wiley
Version of Article
Original manuscript prior to peer review (preprint)
DOI
10.1111/cobi.12702
ISSN
0888-8892
1523-1739
Rights
This is the peer-reviewed version of the following article: Haywood, B.K., Parrish, J.K., and Dolliver, J. (2016) Place-based and data-rich citizen science as a precursor for conservation action. Conservation Biology 30(3), 476-486. doi:10.1111/cobi.12702,
which has been published in final form at https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cobi.12702. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions."
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