Assessing public engagement with science in a university primate research centre in a national zoo

Abstract

Recent years have seen increasing encouragement by research institutions and funding bodies for scientists to actively engage with the public, who ultimately finance their work. Animal behaviour as a discipline possesses several features, including its inherent accessibility and appeal to the public, that may help it occupy a particularly successful niche within these developments. It has also established a repertoire of quantitative behavioural methodologies that can be used to document the public's responses to engagement initiatives. This kind of assessment is becoming increasingly important considering the enormous effort now being put into public engagement projects, whose effects are more often assumed than demonstrated. Here we report our first attempts to quantify relevant aspects of the behaviour of a sample of the hundreds of thousands of visitors who pass through the 'Living Links to Human Evolution Research Centre' in Edinburgh Zoo. This University research centre actively encourages the public to view ongoing primate research and associated science engagement activities. Focal follows of visitors and scan sampling showed substantial 'dwell times' in the Centre by common zoo standards and the addition of new engagement elements in a second year was accompanied by significantly increased overall dwell times, tripling for the most committed two thirds of visitors. Larger groups of visitors were found to spend more time in the Centre than smaller ones. Viewing live, active science was the most effective activity, shown to be enhanced by novel presentations of carefully constructed explanatory materials. The findings emphasise the importance and potential of zoos as public engagement centres for the biological sciences.

Figure 1. Map of the Living Links to Human Evolution Research Centre showing the visitor zones, research rooms and monkey enclosures (thin dotted lines show how the centre was divided up for data collection and do not represent physical barriers, thick dashed lines show windows or balconies affording views into the enclosures).

There are two inside sections to the primate enclosure in each wing, one to which only squirrel monkeys have access (WS and ES) and one to which both capuchins and squirrel monkeys have access (WC and EC).

Figure 2. Aerial view of Living Links, showing East and West enclosures, viewing decks for researchers and the public, inner housing (containing research rooms and viewing corridors).

Photo: Stephen Evans.

Figure 3. Researchers working with squirrel monkeys in the research room cubicles.

Figure 4. Public view of a research room at Living Links from the visitors' window, with researchers working with capuchin monkeys.

Explanatory PowerPoint slides are projected onto the wall above the heads of the researchers, level with the viewing public.

Figure 5. The Living Links Centre showing a) the positions of information boards and barriers in June 2009 and b) the positions of additional information boards and barriers added or moved between 2009 and 2010.

Thick dashed lines show windows or balconies affording views into the enclosures. The information boards corresponding to the codes are described in Table S1.

Figure 6. Central viewing deck at Living Links before and after the addition of multiple information boards (id, ee, ff and gg in Table S1).

Figure 7. The Science Exploration Zone (SEZ) at Living Links, after renovation in 2010, with information boards and interactive materials (from left to right, codes from Table S1): k, bb, cc, j, q, r, n, dd.

Figure 8. One of the newly installed new dividing walls of the Science Exploration Zone (SEZ) at Living Links, after renovation in 2010, showing how visitor flow might be encouraged out to the outside central viewing deck on the left.

Figure 9. Visitor dwell times at the research windows during public engagement activities: No activity or videos showing (N = 50); videos presented on a continuous 3-minute loop (N = 50); videos selectable via touch sensitive buttons (see Table S1) (N = 50); live research without an explanatory PowerPoint slide (N = 50) and live research with a brief explanatory PowerPoint slide and an appropriate photograph of the research (N = 50).

Central bar is median, box indicates the upper and lower quartile for the middle 50%, and whisker the upper and lower 25%. Asterisks and circles show outliers.