Research

Adult Engagement in the Horniman Museum & Gardens Aquarium: A discussion paper

Kevin Edge (2014)

Summary of key findings, reflections & recommendations

 Plus:  the paper’s original literature review

 

Background

In January 2013 The Horniman Museum Aquarium team asked me, Kevin Edge – one of their volunteer researchers – to undertake a project addressing informal adult engagement.

Together we began thinking about the possibility of a relatively un-targeted Aquarium audience at Forest Hill – informed, but non-expert adult visitors – who enjoy the experience of looking (with and without children); who may know a fair bit about biology; who are curious about conservation, but still want more.

We asked:

“Can the Horniman Aquarium do more for adults, why & how?”

Research involved observational fieldwork at the Horniman itself and in 15 other aquariums and museum galleries. There were meetings with a number of sector professionals too. I submitted a draft 96-page discussion paper to the Aquarium team in July 2013. Research findings were presented at the National Aquarium Conference, Bristol Zoo in October 2013.

The final version of the paper intended for internal distribution was submitted to the Aquarium team in November 2013. An edited digest intended for wider distribution was also submitted at that time.

A précis of key findings & reflections

  • The Horniman Museum & Gardens Aquarium is widely acknowledged to be a wonderful natural history primer for the young. Indeed the Aquarium itself was refashioned in 2006 and built “from the ground up with children in mind.”
  • With coordinated, up-to-date online pages and social media platforms complementing the displays, the Aquarium could become a digital ‘node’ of knowledge, advocacy and engagement.
  • Visiting adults can be receptive to conservation messages and should be introduced to basic biology and husbandry issues as a route to conservation literacy. Conservation literacy is that ability to ‘read’ and understand the science, ecological picture and the environmental messages: the facts and the values highlighted in living displays and research projects.
  • There is ample research on the profiles, agendas and ‘entry narratives’ of adult visitors in the literature, and appears in the paper’s literature review [see below]. This work could inform future approaches to Aquarium ethos and interpretation.
  • When the Aquarium is full of families, some lone adult visitors do “feel disenfranchised”. Such adults having their day out at a public aquarium may welcome a more nuanced, more extensive address in the aquarium.
  • Engagement with nature should of course start early, but it should be life-long too. Moreover, conservation scientists tell us time is tight. Delighting children in the Aquarium may have long-term value, but it is we the adults who are environmental watch right now. We hold political sway and make ethically informed consumer choices.
  • Young visitors would not be pushed out of the aquarium picture at Forest Hill if an adult audience were paid great attention. Arguably, better-informed adults might confidently engage with children in their care. There is an opportunity for an informed, ethically aware so-called “intergenerational exchange of knowledge” about aquatic life.
  • An example of a potential target group amongst adults who may want more is revealed by the 2011 Ipsos MORI survey of UK public attitudes to science. It identified a cluster of ‘Late Adopters’, people who are 18% of the population, likely to be in a 16-34 age group and have developed a post-school interest in science as it relates to ethical and environmental issues.
  • Exposure of behind-the-scenes research at Forest Hill on coral breeding, amphibian research and jellyfish could be central to this aim. This should be joined by putting the curators themselves ‘on show’ – as “real people who take pleasure in their work” – to quote one aquarist.
  • This paper was the product of a scoping exercise and was written to prompt internal debate. Qualitative research on adult audiences in the Aquarium could be conducted with interested aquarium and academic partners as part of a second stage of research.

Eight recommendations to the Aquarium team

  1. Maintain healthy, entrancing displays
  2. Describe biology basics, define terms & discuss husbandry
  3. Make in-house research (and the team) fully visible through good design
  4. Keep research news up-to-date. Do the same for field projects
  5. Museums, zoos & aquariums are still a trusted stage for authoritative information on the environment, so share facts, values & ethics with confidence
  6. Develop a strategic framework for informal engagement and conservation literacy dovetailing ‘bricks & clicks’ (gallery and online) formats & content
  7. Collaborate, learn from published research & good practice elsewhere
  8. Listen to all visitors
  9. Aim to connect with everyone

 

© Kevin Edge | March 14 2014

Acknowledgements

Jamie Craggs and James Robson of The Aquarium Department, and discussion paper researcher and writer Kevin Edge thank the following individuals for their specialist time and advice:

Hannah Gow (National Marine Aquarium, Plymouth); Paul Hale (SEA LIFE London); Ben Jones, Senior Aquarist and Andrew Mcleod, Assistant Curator (The Deep in Hull); Brian Zimmerman (ZSL/London Zoo Aquarium Curator); Speakers and delegates at the inaugural BIAZA National Aquarium Conference, Bristol Zoo, October 18-20 2013; Marketing and events colleagues at the Horniman Museum & Gardens; Library Staff at the Arts University Library, Bournemouth; museologist Pauline Cockrill; digital technologist and critical friend Dr Steve Morris; Lucía de la Riva Perez, fellow Imperial College MSc. Science Communication graduate; and last but by no means least, museum curator and friend, Katie Coombs.

ZSL, Sea Life, NMA and The Deep kindly gave the writer complimentary access to their aquariums. These free visits have been important for the production of this paper and are gratefully acknowledged here by the Museum, Aquarium Department and writer.

 

ADULT ENGAGEMENT IN THE AQUARIUM | A DISCUSSION PAPER [extract]

Literature review

Introduction

This short literature review is the result of ‘desk research’ involving the consultation of more than 120 online articles, abstracts, reports, theses and books.

The literature largely comes from two sources: (1) the zoo, aquarium and museum sectors in North America and the UK. This literature is in the form of commissioned reports, research results or strategic documents from individual institutions and the likes of WAZA; (2) academia.

Titles are cited when they are: (1) directly relevant to the topics of adult visitors, science, or communication in aquariums; (2) indicative of wider issues in zoo, aquarium and museum interpretation.

Scholarly reservations about uncritical ‘grey literature’ and surveys measuring and justifying tactics and ‘top-down’ policy goals from the aquarium sector have been encountered (for example Moss & Esson, 2013). Certainly, reflexivity and an impulse to go beyond self-justification is perhaps absent from some of the aquarium sector literature, but this does not mean it should be entirely dismissed. At the very least it speaks of a concern to join conservation debates and acknowledge inclusivity agendas.

We are what we share: modern zoos & aquariums

The business of building a participatory ‘Museum 2.0’* that is a democratising nexus of collection, curators and visitors is anticipated by Graham Black’s book The Engaging Museum of 2005. It is developed overtly by Simon (2008, 2010a and 2010b), Selinda Research Associates (2011), Kelly & Fitzgerald (2011) and restated by Black (2011).

*The concept of Museum 2.0 is after Nina Simon’s work on museums, social participation and collaborative curation. It echoes the term Web 2.0 where first generation website content is enriched with online social interaction.

Comparable shifts in the aquarium sector towards a combination of “mission, message and visitor-driven exhibits” are foreshadowed in Ramberg, Rand & Tomulonis (2002). The most detailed and authoritative agenda-setting publication on the subject of the global aquarium business is that of Turning The Tide, WAZA (2009). Written as a set of sector-wide responses to its 2005 strategy document, it offers a coherent overarching view on how all types of aquariums, large or small can contribute to conservation matters and promote new ways of connecting with the wider world.

Adults

The Museums, Libraries & Archives Council publication, Engaging Adult Audiences, (MLA, 2010) stresses the merits of universal access and offers practical advice on achieving it. The MLA document notes reductions in college opportunities, rising numbers of retired people and the appeal of informality afforded by public institutions like museums arguing there to be “a market for recreational learning in museums” (2010, 11). Taylor (2010) explores the potential of museums and zoos as informal sites of adult education suggesting that they are often overlooked. Of relevance here is the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) that “aims to encourage all adults to engage in learning of all kinds” (www.niace.org.uk, accessed 27.6.2013). 

Insights on adults, life-long learning and social inclusion from a European perspective are found in Gibbs & Thompson (2007) who identify two fundamental  processes central to understanding adult engagement. The first is where “active, differentiated learning styles are acknowledged” in a subject; the second is where understanding on the part of a subject is also deemed to be a product of social contexts and interactions. Much of the literature now accepts that ‘free-choice’ learning in informal public institutions is achieved through these two processes. These allow us to consider a self-guided individual who is looking, thinking and learning in their own way as they simultaneously bring previous knowledge and societal perspectives to bear on a collection’s exhibits, voice and mission.

A review of the literature on self-directed adult learning can be found in Banz (2008). In Kelly (2011), her earlier views on reflexivity on the part of visitors are developed. Today, such free-choice, informal learning options for ‘all ages’ are also enhanced by media channels and via outdoor trips. As Falk, Heimlich & Foutz (eds.) (2009) argue, many visitors today will enter an aquarium with TV, radio, internet and book knowledge already under their belts.

Predicted UK demographic trends are assessed in Beddington’s report for the UK Government (2013). This looks forward a decade seeing an increasingly fluid social landscape of “overlapping identities”, digitally competent adults and more in retirement predicting that the natural environment will increasingly inform a sense of “identity and well-being”.

It is worth recording that until recently, both informal and formal adult learning seems to have been given little attention with Dudzinska-Przesmitzki & Grenier (2008) noting a lack of theoretical work in this area.

Science & conservation

Zoos and aquariums are peopled with two distinct groups each with their own agenda: that of the zoologist, and that of the lay visitor. Patrick & Tunnicliffe’s Zoo Talk (2013) helps us think about these two constituencies and whilst focused in the main on children and zoo education, the book’s broad overview and careful insights into these two make it equally applicable to the business of adult engagement. The intriguing possibility that many lay visitors may in fact know more than might be expected is developed in Ma (2011) following front-end research into knowledge of marine microorganisms for the San Francisco Exploratorium.

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