Comparing Zoom and In-Person Zoo Tours on Students’ Interest in Animals: A Case Study During the COVID-19 Lockdown

Abstract

During the Corona pandemic, many extracurricular learning sites, such as zoos, were closed. In order to offer students the opportunity to visit zoos under pandemic conditions, online live tours via Zoom were conducted at the Frankfurt Zoo. After the pandemic identical tours were conducted under in-person conditions. To investigate the effects of this educational format on students’ interest in animals, they were surveyed in a pre/post/follow-up design. While Zoom tours at the zoo had very little effect on interest in animals, significant increases were shown immediately after the in-person tour. The advantage of in-person tours over Zoom tours in terms of interest generation can be attributed to a lack of a “real zoo experience” during the Zoom tours. But even these effects were not sustained, as follow-up tests demonstrated. An examination of the gender results shows that boys were the primary contributors to the increase in interest in animals.

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