Hi Jenny,

We've been pilot-testing various approaches towards encouraging specific actions in relation to our walk-through butterfly exhibit & the Oregon silverspot butterfly conservation project. One action step we're testing is having visitors plant a violet seed as they leave the flight exhibit (to help with habitat restoration).  Those who participated then received butterfly-friendly seeds to plant.  This winter we'll be conducting follow-up phone and e-mail interviews with a subset of the visitors who took seed packets.

In addition, this winter we plan to develop & test various conservation messages on visitors' purchasing decisions.  We've not completely settled upon the specifics yet, but it's likely we'll be testing messages related to the purchase of shade-grown coffee, and/or the purchase of crafts that benefit snow leopard conservation.  Anyway, we're happy to share data as these projects develop, and we'd love to hear about others' projects as well.  It'd be great to pool the knowledge.

Kathryn


Kathryn Owen
Audience Research Coordinator
Woodland Park Zoo
601 N. 59th St.
Seattle, WA  98103
(206) 615-1082



-----Original Message-----
From: Jenny Sayre Ramberg [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, December 08, 2003 6:14 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Inspiring behavior change for the environment


We're preparing to open a new sharks exhibit in April, and in conjunction with the exhibit we're launching a campaign to encourage visitors to change a specific consumer behavior in order to protect shark species in the wild. We want to identify a specific action that people can do, are willing to do and that will have a positive impact -- no matter whether it's large or small. Since the action will be tied closely to the exhibition content, this is different from a broad-based recommendation like recycle or don't pollute, or suggesting general civic behaviors such as support this issue or write your legislator.

My question for the list:

* Has anyone ever attempted to get visitors to change a specific behavior (don't buy this; or do buy that) in support of an environmental conservation goal?

* How did you go about it? How successful were you? How did you measure your success, or lack of success? 

We're familiar with both the conservation psychology and social marketing literature and are looking more specifically for examples of successful conservation-related consumer behaviors encouraged by free-choice learning institutions.

Any information you can offer will be of tremendous help.


Jenny Sayre RAMBERG
Exhibit Developer/Writer
Monterey Bay Aquarium
886 Cannery Row
Monterey, CA 93940
831-648-7991; [log in to unmask]
On the web at www.montereybayaquarium.org
Our mission is to inspire conservation of the oceans.
Celebrating our 20th anniversary in 2004

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