Nature documentaries and mammal education

Student Spotlight - Bethany Dixon

I’m Bethany, a member of Lancaster Lagomorphs, one of the teams taking part in the university mammal challenge. I wanted to share some of our team’s engagement events, particularly our most recent one where we invited people to sit down with us and watch a nature documentary. I’ve always really enjoyed watching science and nature programs growing up, in particular I remember watching Blue Planet II when it debuted. I had just turned thirteen at the time, and it’s one of the things that inspired a love of science in me at such a pivotal age.

Nature documentaries are key in educating a wider audience on the natural world, and those who study it. Educating the public is important for increasing empathy for animals, as it can lead to more active support of conservation projects, including donating to conservation charities. Nature documentaries can allow people to view animals from a different perspective, which they may not experience otherwise. This allows better understanding and can lead to more alignment in morals and values between scientists, nature enthusiasts and the general public. Nature documentaries have great potential for this, as they are often shown on prime-time TV, allowing this content to reach people who may not seek out this information for themselves.

Because education is important to our team we have had a particular focus on engagement as a part of our university mammal challenge. We have hosted two radio shows named mammal mayhem on Bailrigg FM – our student-run university radio station. We had a lot of fun on our show; talking about UK mammals to our listeners, sharing unusual facts about specific species, but we wanted to try something else for our next engagement event. That’s when nature documentaries came to mind.

The Lancaster Lagomorphs team hosting the second instalment of their radio show, mammal mayhem. PC: Anna Foster

 Our nature documentary screening

At our May engagement event, we streamed two episodes of the nature documentary “Mammals” by Sir David Attenborough; episode 3 - based around how mammals interact with and or live in water, and episode 6 - about mammals that live in forest habitats, and how they interact with that habitat.

As our previous engagement events had been mostly remote, just us in the radio station, I wanted to make the most of the greater interaction we had at the screening. I decided to see what people thought about the nature documentary by asking them a few questions before and after. This allowed me to understand the engagement level of the event, and if people had been educated by the documentary.

Lancaster Lagomorphs team members at the engagement event. PC: Anna Foster

I first asked: “On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you know about UK mammals in general?” An answer average of 5 was given. After the screening, everyone said they felt their knowledge had improved. This was great to hear, as it means our event had achieved the most important thing – for the attendees to feel as though they had learnt something.

The second question I asked was: “On a scale of 1 to 10, how important do you think mammal conservation is?” Before the viewing, the average response was 7.75, which increased to 8.25 by the end. For almost everyone, the response was consistent before and after, possibly due to everyone being students, who classically have a more positive opinion of conservation. One person said they didn’t score 10/10 because they felt not just Mammals were important to conserve, for example they felt the conservation of bees was more important.  

The audience of the nature documentary engagement event. PC: Anna Foster

After the show, I asked if people’s perception of mammals had improved, and in what way. A couple said they felt about the same, as they already had a pretty positive opinion of animals and conservation in general. Others said they felt more “empathy”, “feeling” and “enlightened”. The documentary had clearly gone down well with the audience. One person mentioned they felt “more empathetic to some of the species mentioned, but the same for others” which was interesting to me – but makes sense as some of the animals shown were only briefly included.

I was also interested in which information within the episodes was most surprising to people, and to gauge what specifically was learnt. I got many different responses: “The Bobcat catching the salmon, especially as it was the first time that it had ever been recorded”, “Sperm whales sleeping vertically” and “The dolphins and false killers hunting together”, which made sense as it was something none of the audience had heard of before. “Star-nosed Moles smelling using air bubbles when underwater” was another response. This last point also sparked a debate as to how smells actually diffuse from the water into the air pocket, which was exciting to be involved in, and shows how well the audience were engaged by what they were learning.

The screening of the nature documentary. PC: Anna Foster

When I was asking people about their level of mammal knowledge, a few commented that they had already learnt more about UK mammals recently – thanks to the university mammal challenge. Since our team had hosted the two radio shows at this point, friends who came to the screening already knew more about mammals than they had before, thanks to listening in to them. I think this shows that active engagement within citizen science events can greatly educate both those who participate in the activities and challenges, and those around them.

I personally have fostered a greater appreciation for mammals, and nature in general, since participating in the university mammal challenge, and this experience has allowed me to actually engage in the conservation itself, however small a role it may be. I think nature documentaries are a great gateway into fields such as ecology, zoology and conservation, but we can all go further. If you, the reader, have recently felt inspired by a nature documentary – maybe you’ve just watched the show Mammals too – a citizen science project, like the university mammal challenge, is a great way to get more involved, and to actively participate. I encourage everyone reading this – no matter how interested you are – to see what citizen science projects are going on in your area, and to get out there and do something to help nature!

The Lancaster Lagomorphs team while on a soggy transect data collection. PC: Anna Foster

Find out more about the University Mammal Challenge here.