Table 3.
TTM processes of change, with examples in a zoo/aquarium setting
| Process of change | Examples of process in a zoo/aquarium setting |
|---|---|
| Recognizing | On grounds interpretation experience where visitors interact with an educator who explains how gorillas are losing habitat due to coltan mining for electronics and asks visitors to help gorillas by spreading the word on social media about recycling cell phones (J. Wilson, personal communication, May 1, 2021) |
| Reacting | Demonstration with marine wildlife that shows how they are affected by plastic entanglement and how recycling or reducing plastic use can save marine animals to evoke empathy and concern about the need for reducing plastic use (Mellish et al., 2016) |
| Re‐evaluating (other) | Activity for zoo visitors to calculate their ecological footprint to see their personal impact on the environment based on their daily habits (Detroit Zoo, 2020) |
| Re‐evaluating (self) | Aligning messages about climate change to tested values to prime the audience for the content in a way that will appeal to them (Bales et al., 2015) |
| Realizing | Providing emails and newsletters to members that include conservation tips and actions that people can take (Nageotte, 2019) |
| Committing | Asking people to sign pledges to commit to a behavior after a program (MacDonald, 2015) |
| Reaching out | A young professionals' group for like‐minded individuals to learn, network, and engage in conservation activities (Swindle & Grose, 2019) |
| Rewarding | During the school year, groups of students create projects that lead to direct conservation actions. They gain small rewards during project milestones. Each project is judged at the end of the year with the winning projects receiving a monetary prize (Waldron, 2020) |
| Replacing | An interpretation program asks zoo visitors to replace regular coffee consumption with shade‐grown coffee to reduce habitat destruction in South America and support conservation of migratory birds (Smithsonian's National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, n.d.) |
| Restructuring | Ceasing sales of single‐use plastic water bottles, replacing them with reusable water bottles (Wallace, 2017) |
Abbreviation: TTM, Transtheoretical Model.