Introduction

An aquarium, or aquaria in plural form, is a site that offers visitors the chance to view water- and land-based animals (either marine or freshwater) in a museum-like environment; they include a variety of species including fish, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals; they include tanks, hands-on exhibits, interactives, educational programs, and sometimes touch experiences. Much of a person’s learning during their lifetime happens outside of formal learning environments such as schools and universities, as documented by the National Research Council (USA) in Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits. Free-choice learning at places like museums, zoos, and aquariums is learning that is self-motivated, lifelong, and personally guided by an individual’s personal needs and interests. While the exact definition of a public aquarium can be debated, it is estimated there are somewhere between 125 and 150 public aquaria worldwide; around 75 of these are in the United States alone (source: Wikipedia, “public aquarium”).

History and Educational Opportunities in Aquaria

While people have kept fish indoors and on display dating back to the Roman Empire, public aquaria are roughly 150 years old starting with the first public aquarium opening in the London Zoo in 1853. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) estimates that the 225 aquaria and zoos accredited by AZA account for more than 175 million visits worldwide; the largest aquaria attract more than two million visitors a year. Much of what motivates people to visit these institutions is viewing live animals they would not normally get to see, and this offers a unique opportunity for aquaria to connect and engage with visitors through exhibits, programs, and live animal “touch” experiences and increasingly through web- and mobile-based experiences.

Learning in Aquaria

Most public aquaria consider themselves to be informal science learning institutions and have education departments that work with local school groups or whole education systems, providing materials before, during, or after field trips to complement and enhance the visit itself. The learning that occurs during field trips typically focuses on cognitive information tied directly to the school curricula for that particular grade. However, the majority of aquaria visitors come outside of field trips, and learning for these visitors tends to be more open-ended, visitor driven, and more of a combination of cognitive, affective, social, and other types of learning than exclusively cognitive learning. In fact, visitor learning is influenced most by individual visitors’ interests, prior experiences, knowledge, and motivations for visiting. Regardless of who someone is, what visitors learn in aquaria tends to be focused on the animals, although visitors often learn about the animals’ habitats and human impact on animals and the ocean.

Learning About Conservation-Related Issues

In the past decade, there has been a noticeable shift from zoos and aquaria exhibiting animals to including messages about conserving animals and their habitats; including conservation messages is now common in institutional mission statements. As a result, research is being conducted about how a visit impacts visitors’ conservation-related attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors (Yalowitz 2004). Recent studies have looked at the cumulative impact of visits across aquaria and zoo visits, including the Why Zoos and Aquariums Matter study (Falk et al. 2007), finding that aquaria and zoo visitors bring a higher-than-expected knowledge about basic ecological concepts, experience a stronger connection to nature as a result of their visit, have their values and attitudes reinforced, are prompted to reconsider their role in environmental problems, and can see themselves as part of the solution. While this is good news to aquaria and zoos, the Assessing Public Awareness, Attitudes, and Actions: America and the Ocean study found that the public still had only a marginal understanding of how oceans work, their relative importance, and the challenges we face in keeping oceans healthy. However, this study found that certain audiences, like teens and “tweens” aged 10–12 years, had a higher level of awareness about ocean-related issues compared to adults.

Learning About Climate Change

Studies at informal science education venues have shown that science-based institutions such as aquaria have visitors who are more aware of and knowledgeable about climate change compared to the general public. A supplemental round of funding by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 2009 specifically supported aquaria and zoos communicating about climate change; one project is designed to build a shared community where zoos and aquariums can share information about interpreting climate change (see www.climateinterpreter.org). Aquaria are also starting to categorize visitors based on the well-known Global Warming’s Six Americas Study to gauge whether aquarium visitors have different attitudes from the general public regarding climate change. One recently released publication discusses recent approaches and research for specifically communicating climate change in zoos and aquariums (Grajal and Goldman 2012).

Summary

In summary, aquaria have had a long history first as attractions and then as educational institutions who can effectively communicate science content about animals and their place in the world. As aquaria make the shift to stressing the importance of protecting animals, their habitats, and encouraging environmental stewardship, they have great potential to not only communicate science concepts and issues but empower visitors to take care of the world in which they live.

Links

Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC) – represents science-based visitor-based organizations, such as science museums, science centers, natural history museums, zoos, aquaria, and the like.

Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) – international association representing zoos and aquaria, with a particular focus on education.

ClimateInterpreter.org – a site for the zoo and aquarium community to share about how to most effectively communicate climate change to the public.

Informalscience.org – a repository of evaluation and research reports, many focusing on learning and education; one can search evaluation reports by “aquarium.”

NOAA Ocean Education Grants for AZA Aquariums: FY09 – a series of grants “to support education projects designed to engage the public in activities that increase ocean and/or climate literacy and the adoption of a stewardship ethic.”

The Ocean Project (TOP) – a nonprofit that “advances ocean conservation in partnership with zoos, aquariums, and museums around the world.”

Cross-References