I am targeting to throw questions to people, to generate conversations and to make people to take actions for connecting themselves with nature and animals in the environmental education activity.
What is environmental education?
The world is facing to serious environmental problems. Then I would like to consider about my target of environmental education movement. As I have written in the article “4 Roles of Aquariums”, education is one of the most important mission of aquariums.
The purpose of environmental education in my opinion is to generate stewards who sustain biodiversity for the next generation. For this purpose, let us think about what and how zoos and aquariums have to tell to people.
Connection with human beings
There is an opinion “man should not keep living animals in zoos and aquariums” globally. Especially, the ratio of the generation with the such opinion who has born in 1980s and later (GenY, Z and alpha) is more than that of other generations. On the other hand, there are various nations and regions which have the different cultures of relationship with animals, for example fisheries, hunting or livestock et al, which are lying on each native person in the world.
Therefore, sometimes there may be incompatible areas between different tribes. Actually, there are various people; someone hate dolphin shows, someone hate animal exhibitions and someone hate eating animals. Moreover, their acceptable degrees are not also countable.
For this viewpoint, it is required that people have to respect each other and resolve without emotional arguments but with rational dialogues. The subjects of conservation are human beings. It is not reasonable way that people cannot coexist each other. Zoos and aquariums must have not only the role of displaying ecology of animals, but that of describing objectively people the circumstances around that animals and the various cultural connections with people.
Growing motivations to make actions
Exactly, we may tell people detailed ecology and wild environments of animals via information boards around the exhibitions. However, there are the guides which can be provided with only human, that come from people’s various minds, that is not edited and that is never again reproduced. That is just the role of zoos and aquariums who are exhibiting living animals.
Finally, animals are not living in the tank. All the aquarium’s officer tend to forget this viewpoint. It is insufficient to tell visitors interests of animals in the tank as the role of aquariums. Aquariums also need to rouse people’s interests in the real wildlife. Moreover, they shall target to make people paying their attentions and taking actions for environmental conservation. Aquariums and zoos provide them such opportunities.
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