Receiving the message – environmental education at dioramas

Abstract

Environmental Education is of increasing importance and there is a need to raise awareness and educate society to understand the value of biodiversity and sustainable behaviour. We wanted to find out if natural history dioramas can be effective tools for environmental learning. Data were collected in a German natural history museum at an African Savannah diorama. Leisure visitors’ dialogues at the diorama were captured and interviews were carried out, to find out what visitors noticed, talked about and understood. The results show that the majority of visitors can identify elements within the natural history diorama. They recognize social relationships or predator-prey relationships; only few visitors spontaneously commented on ecosystem perturbations or conservation biology issues. However, when specific cues are provided, visitors engage with the conservation concept being highlighted and discuss human impact on nature and conservation actions. We therefore conclude that visits to specific natural history dioramas increase visitors’ ecological awareness and knowledge, as well as their affective connection to nature being a significant predictor of pro-environmental behaviour.