EVALUATION OF VISITOR LEARNING DURING HERO RAT DAY

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EVALUATION OF VISITOR LEARNING DURING HERO RAT DAY
EXMOOR ZOO LIZANNE BYRNE STEVE EDDY
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FIRSTLY, WHAT ARE HERO RATS?

• African Giant Pouched rats (Cricetomys gambianus)
  which have been clicker trained to
  find landmines using their incredible sense of
  smell.
• Work like sniffer dogs to detect landmines but
  have the advantage of being cheap to keep, easy
  to train and too light to set off the landmines.
• More reliable than metal detectors as not all
  landmines are metal!
• Have been promoted for landmine clearance by the
  organisation APOPO (see www.herorat.org)

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AIM OF HERO RAT DAY

• Exmoor Zoo held a Hero Rat promotion day on
  28th May 2008 to
• Raise awareness of how the rats are used for
  land mine clearance
• Encourage visitors to support the Hero Rat
  appeal
• Provide a fun and educational day for visitors
  (as part of its mission as a
• BIAZA zoo to provide education recreation)
• Hero Rat Day involved
• Fun sniffer trail with quiz to learn about the
  rats
• Interactive talk on Hero Rats chance to meet a
  real Hero Rat
• Puppet show theatre with a rat as the star
• Visitor leaflet to learn about the rats / where
  to find out more info
• Takeaway goodie bag with DVD on the Hero Rat
  Story
• Sponsorship was gained from Supreme Pet Foods
  McVities Jaffa Cakes

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SO WHAT WAS THE SNIFFER TRAIL?

• Visitors had to locate 5 (non live!) landmines
  around the zoo, use their noses to identify
• what it smelt of (e.g. Onion, Coffee, Mint)
  and answer a quiz question.
• Fun way for visitors to use their noses as
  Hero Rats do when sniffing landmines.
• Provided an interesting way to learn about the
  rats, through finding answers to the quiz.

Add pics of children Sniffing mines
No danger! The wooden landmines will not explode!
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EXAMPLE OF COMPLETED SNIFFER TRAIL
Need to scan in Completed trail
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WHAT DID THE INTERACTIVE TALK COVER?

• Visitors met a real Hero Rat, learned about
  what they do how they can be supported
• through donations and adoptions.
• Interactive game was used to show how the rats
  are clicker trained.Children were
• clicker trained to hunt out sweets.
• Children were shown how to use metal detectors
  to understand how they work.

Add pics of education talk
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HOW DID WE EVALUATE VISITOR LEARNING?

• Visitor learning was evaluated using mindmaps pre
  and post the zoo visit
• The concept of a mindmap was first explained,
  then visitors were given one as below
• and asked to fill in anything that came into
  their mind in relation to Hero Rats
• Pre Visit
• Visitors were intercepted as they entered the
  zoo (sample 62)
• Post Visit
• Visitors were intercepted as they left the zoo
  (sample 71)

Empty Mindmap
HERO RAT
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FINDINGS PRE VISIT

• The majority of visitors (64) knew nothing about
  Hero Rats and left the mindmap
  empty
• Some visitors (21) had heard about Hero Rats
  from previous zoo talks. All of them knew the
  rats sniff out landmines and some other facts
  were also recalled (see below)
• The rest of the visitors (15) wrote down general
  comments about rats or the fact that the zoo was
  holding a special event about Hero Rats.

Pre Visit Knowledge - Visitors
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EXAMPLE OF PRE VISIT MINDMAPS
Need to scan in
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FINDINGS POST VISIT

• Significantly more people knew something about
  Hero Rats
• 81 noted they sniff out landmines post visit
  compared with 21 pre visit
• The 14 of visitors that didnt know anything
  post visit mentioned they didnt go to
• the Hero Rat talk or do the trail.

Knowledge Pre Post Visit - Visitors
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FAR MORE FACTS WERE KNOWN POST VISIT THAN PRE
VISIT

• Main facts recalled were that they are used to
  sniff landmines (81), they are light so they
• dont trigger the mines (43) they have a
  good sense of smell (33).
• Various landmine facts were also recalled by
  38 see over for details

Post Visit Knowledge Visitors (any mentions
above 10 )
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POST VISIT KNOWLEDGE CONTINUED..

• Several landmine facts were recalled the main
  ones being
• There are 60m-100m landmines in the world (14)
• A landmine explodes every 20 minutes (10)
• They can be plastic or glass so metal detectors
  dont always find them (10)
• The majority of visitors (62) mentioned at
  least one benefit of using the rats that they
  are light so dont trigger mines (43), they have
  a good sense of smell (33), they are intelligent
  (19), easy to train (16), cheap to train (14)
  and will work for more than one person, unlike
  dogs (14).
• Some visitors also mentioned specific details
  about how the rats are used, e.g. that they are
  trained with treats (10), wear a harness when
  searching the mines (10), are rewarded with
  treats when they find a mine (5) and communicate
  in different ways to show they have found a mine
  (20) e.g. by running round in circles or
  scratching/squealing (10).

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EXAMPLES OF POST VISIT MINDMAPS
Need to scan in
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CONCLUSION

• Exmoor zoo succeeded in raising awareness and
  knowledge of Hero Rats
• Knowledge of Hero Rats was significantly
  greater after visitors experienced the
  
• Hero Rat day.
• Informal feedback and photos from the day also
  suggest that visitors had a fun
• experience.
• Consequently, Exmoor Zoo fulfilled its mission
  of providing an educational
• and recreational event.

visit www.exmoorzoo.co.uk emailExmoorzoo_at_btconn
ect.com