title: Participating in a Citizen Science Monitoring Program: Implications for Environmental Education.
abstract: Tourism is of growing economical importance to many nations, in particular for developing countries. Although tourism is an important economic vehicle for the host country, its continued growth has led to on-going concerns about its environmental sustainability. Coastal and marine tourism can directly affect the environment through direct and indirect tourist activities. For these reasons tourism sector needs practical actions of sustainability. Several studies have shown how education minimizes the impact on and is proactive for, preserving the natural resources. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of a citizen science program to improve the environmental education of the volunteers, by means of questionnaires provided to participants to a volunteer-based Red Sea coral reef monitoring program (STEproject). Fifteen multiple-choice questions evaluated the level of knowledge on the basic coral reef biology and ecology and the awareness on the impact of human behaviour on the environment. Volunteers filled in questionnaires twice, once at the beginning, before being involved in the project and again at the end of their stay, after several days participation in the program. We found that the participation in STEproject significantly increased both the knowledge of coral reef biology and ecology and the awareness of human behavioural impacts on the environment, but was more effective on the former. We also detected that tourists with a higher education level have a higher initial level of environmental education than less educated people and that the project was more effective on divers than snorkelers. This study has emphasized that citizen science projects have an important and effective educational value and has suggested that tourism and diving stakeholders should increase their commitment and efforts to these programs.
authors.affiliation: Marine Science Group, Citizen Science Lab, Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences, Section of Biology, University of Bologna, Via F. Selmi 3, I-40126, Bologna, Italy, European Union.
authors.forename: Simone
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Branchini
authors.affiliation: Marine Science Group, Citizen Science Lab, Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences, Section of Biology, University of Bologna, Via F. Selmi 3, I-40126, Bologna, Italy, European Union.
authors.forename: Marta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Meschini
authors.affiliation: Marine Science Group, Citizen Science Lab, Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences, Section of Biology, University of Bologna, Via F. Selmi 3, I-40126, Bologna, Italy, European Union.
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Covi
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Fisheries and Marine Biology at Fano, University of Bologna, Viale Adriatico 1/N, I-61032, Fano (PU), Italy, European Union.
authors.forename: Corrado
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Piccinetti
authors.affiliation: Marine Science Group, Citizen Science Lab, Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences, Section of Biology, University of Bologna, Via F. Selmi 3, I-40126, Bologna, Italy, European Union.
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Zaccanti
authors.affiliation: Marine Science Group, Citizen Science Lab, Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences, Section of Biology, University of Bologna, Via F. Selmi 3, I-40126, Bologna, Italy, European Union.
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Goffredo
mesh_terms: D057894:Coral Reefs; D004463:Ecology / Q000193:education*; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D019156:Indian Ocean; D008297:Male; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires