Preliminary Evaluation of a System for Helping Children Observe the

Anatomies and Behaviors of Animals in a Zoo

Yui Tanaka

, Ryohei Egusa

1, 2

, Yuuki Dobashi

, Fusako Kusunoki

Etsuji Yamaguchi

, Shigenori Inagaki

and Tomoyuki Nogami

Kobe University, Hyogo, Japan

Research Fellow of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Tokyo, Japan

Tama Art University, Tokyo, Japan

Keywords: Mobile Systems, Zoo, Science Learning.

Abstract: In order to support children’s scientific observation in zoos, we developed a system for helping children to

observe the anatomies and behaviors of animals. This system provides viewpoints for observation via

animations. Observing the anatomies and behaviors of animals is related to scientific observation. As a case

study, we developed a system for learning about penguins and held a workshop at Kobe Municipal Oji Zoo.

At the workshop, 19 elementary students used the system and observed how penguins swim and walk along

with the skeletons of their legs and flippers. We examined the evaluations of children’s enjoyment of this

system. They responded to five items on their feelings about using this system on five-point scales. The

number of affirmative responses was found to be more in number than neutral or negative responses.

Children were able to enjoy using this system for observing the anatomies and behaviors of animals in a

zoo.

1 INTRODUCTION

One of the informal science learning places is the

zoo (National Research Council, 2009). Zoo

provides chances to observe animals and emulates

their natural habitats, thus strengthening students’

connection to nature (Falk, 2014). Patrick and

Tunnicliffe (2013) state that one of the roles of zoos

is education that aims to aid visitors in learning the

scientific interpretation of organisms. Wagoner and

Jensen (2010) noted that children could acquire

knowledge about animals by observing them with

educational support. However, many zoos cannot

appropriately support the observation of animals

(Mallapur et al., 2008). Additionally, despite the

educational aspirations, the zoology garden has

become a place for leisure visit (Patrick and

Tunnicliffe, 2013). For visitors, entertainment and

recreation may be more important than the

educational functions of the zoo (Webber et al.,

2017).

Recently, a number of studies have explored

technologies for zoo visitor education. It is said that

technology-based education for visitors offers the

potential for effective delivery of information

(Perdue et al., 2012). Additionally, technology-based

education has a greater impact than static signage

and is attractive to young people (Webber et al.,

2016). Guide systems are an example. They provide

information about animals through pictures, videos,

and explanations on tablets, and they are effective

for education in zoos. (Suzuki et al., 2009; Ohashi et

al., 2008). However, to the extent of our knowledge,

only few studies so far have discussed observation in

zoos by using animation.

Tanaka et al. (2016) developed and evaluated a

system for supporting the observation of seals in a

zoo by using animation. The contents of this system

cover the features and behaviors of seals. Scientific

observation of features and behaviors of animals are

important activities in zoos. Patrick and Tunnicliffe

(2013) have stated that zoos should support children

to note simple morphological and taxonomic terms

and the taxonomy of animals based on

morphological attributes and similarities. In

addition, Eberbach and Crowley (2009) explained

that scientific observation involves the following:

Tanaka, Y., Egusa, R., Dobashi, Y., Kusunoki, F., Yamaguchi, E., Inagaki, S. and Nogami, T.

Preliminary Evaluation of a System for Helping Children Observe the Anatomies and Behaviors of Animals in a Zoo.

DOI: 10.5220/0006351703050310

In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2017) - Volume 2, pages 305-310

ISBN: 978-989-758-240-0

305

notice and describe relevant features and ignore

irrelevant features using disciplinary structure (e.g.,

taxonomy).

This system uses animations because of three

reasons. First, animation promotes better

understanding due to its visualization (Betrancourt

and Chassot, 2008). Second, animation makes it

easy for children to understand movement because

the advantage of animatronics is that they move in a

planned sequence repeating their narrative (Patrick

and Tunnicliffe, 2013). The third reason is that

animation can help to motivate learning and to draw

students’ attention on particular subjects, which

eventually facilitate better learning (Shreesha and

Tyagi, 2016).

However, this system is not enough to support

scientific observation because of lack of viewpoints

about anatomies of animals. Patrick and Tunnicliffe

(2013) said that taxonomic judgments could not be

made without an understanding of the anatomy and

behavior of organisms, but, in reality, children tend

to lack knowledge about organisms of animals

(Prokop et al., 2007; Tunnicliffe and Reiss, 2010).

This is why we developed a new system helping

children to observe the anatomies and behaviors of

penguins in this study. We expect that because of the

developed system using animations, children will be

able to observe animals thinking not only about

surface features, but also about invisible internal

structure. They will also have a better opportunity to

observe animals scientifically. Supporting

observations of anatomy and behavior by animation

thus aids children’s scientific observation in zoo.

We ascertained whether the developed system

using the content on penguins was effective in

encouraging scientific observation of providing

viewpoints on anatomy and behavior. In this study,

we first examined whether children enjoyed using

this system and whether it aroused their interests.

2 SYSTEM OVERVIEW

2.1 Development Environment

HTML and PHP5.3 were used to create the

development environment of the server. The

animations were played using GIF. The guide is

Internet-based.

2.2 Details of This System

This system allowed children to predict and observe

the anatomies and behaviors of penguins by

referring to animations. Figure 1 provides a system

overview and Figure 2 outlines the system flow. The

system is made of four items that present the

anatomies and behaviors of the penguins: walking,

swimming, leg skeleton, and flipper skeleton. There

are two stages in each item: Prediction stage and

Result stage. Each stage includes a Question page,

Animation page, and Selection page. Based on a

request from the user, an appropriate question and

three options of the question are displayed on the

Question page. On the Question page, the bottom

part of each option includes the “Watch animation”

button and “My prediction” button. The user can

Figure 1: The system overview.

CSEDU 2017 - 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

306

watch an animation on the Animation page by

clicking the “Watch animation” button. The number

of times they play the animations depends on each

child. Children can choose only one option as a

prediction by clicking the “My prediction” button.

They can also indicate their level of confidence in

their prediction on the Selection page. When the

children indicates their level of confidence on a five-

point scale, the option and the level of confidence of

each child are sent to the server as a URL parameter

and saved as a PHP file, which is used later to

display the prediction stamp that has been described

below.

The next stage is the Result stage. The same

question and options are displayed as on the

Question page on the Result stage. The Question

page on the Result stage is almost the same as on the

Prediction stage without a prediction stamp

appearing on the top of the option that has been

selected by the children as their predictions. While

observing actual penguins or a skeleton of penguin,

they can again watch the animations by clicking

“Watch animation.” After observations, the children

need to select one option to represent their

observation and click “Result” to indicate their

choice. They also indicate the level of the

confidence in the result by observation. When the

children indicate their level of confidence, the

choices and the level of the confidence of each child

are sent as a URL parameter and saved as PHP files.

The flow is repeated four times.

Figure 2 shows the choices for the skeleton of

flippers: 1. Five finger-bone, 2. Flat bones, 3. Many

thin bones. Figure 3 shows the choices for ways to

swim: 1. Swims using legs, 2. Swims using flippers,

3. Swims using legs and flippers. Figure 4 shows the

choices for walking: 1. Walks slowly 2. Jumps and

walks, 3. Walks on tiptoes. Figure 5 shows the

choices for the skeleton of legs: 1. Short legs, 2.

Long legs, 3. Bent leg.

Figure 2: System flow.

Preliminary Evaluation of a System for Helping Children Observe the Anatomies and Behaviors of Animals in a Zoo

307

3 RESEARCH METHOD AND

DESIGN

3.1 Workshop

In order to assess the effectiveness of this system,

we held a workshop using this system in Kobe

Municipal Oji Zoo on December 1, 2016. The

workshop was held as follows. At first, the staff

asked a question and provided options for the

Figure 3: Question about swimming.

Figure 4: Question about walking.

Figure 5: Question about leg skeletons.

question from the system. Next, children watched

the animations for each choice and predicted the

answer at least one time (Figure 6). Third, children

observed penguins or skeletons of penguins referring

to animations (Figure 7, 8). After observation,

children again made selections. The staff members

told them the correct answers after children made

their choices, and explained some more details about

the item. This flow, which takes about 10 minutes,

was repeated four times for swimming, walking, leg

skeleton, and flipper skeleton.

Figure 6: Children making a choice as a prediction.

Figure 7: Children observing a live penguin.

Figure 8: Children observing a penguin skeleton.

CSEDU 2017 - 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

308

Table 1: Evaluation results for the system.

Item

I enjoyed using this system very much.

This system was fun to use.

I would describe this system as very interesting.

I thought this system was quite enjoyable.

While I was using this system, I was thinking about how much I enjoyed it.

N =19

5: Strongly agree, 4: Agree, 3: Neutral, 2: Disagree, 1: Strongly disagree

p < 0.01

3.2 Participation

The participants were 19 second- and third-graders

from elementary school (13 boys and 6 girls). One

or two adults accompanied each child during the

observation of the penguins, and each child received

a tablet to use for this exercise.

3.3 Data Source and Analysis

After the workshop, participants were interviewed.

At the interview, they evaluated the system using

five items on a five-point scale ranging from

“strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.”

First, we classified the responses: “strongly

agree” and “agree,” were classified as affirmative

responses while “neutral,” “disagree,” and “strongly

disagree” were classified as neutral or negative

responses. Subsequently, the affirmative responses

and neutral or negative responses were analyzed

using a 1 x 2 uneven distribution binomial test.

4 RESULTS

Table 1 presents a summary of the evaluation results

for the system. For all the five items, the number of

affirmative answers exceeded the neutral and

negative answers (as the students indicated, “I

enjoyed using this system very much,” “This system

was fun to use,” “I would describe this system as

very interesting,” “I thought this system was quite

enjoyable,” “While I was using this system, I was

thinking about how much I enjoyed it”). A

significant bias was found in the number of

responses for all items (p < .01).

Some details of their answers are given below: “I

enjoyed the quizzes and observed penguins,”

“Animations about penguins were useful, using the

system was enjoyable for me,” “It was first time I

observed animals using a tablet, so during

observation, I really enjoyed the activity with this

system”.

5 CONCLUSIONS

This paper described the development and

evaluation of children’s enjoyment of the support

provided for their observations in a zoo by using

animations. In the evaluation, the number of

affirmative responses exceeded the number of

neutral and negates responses for all five items.

Moreover, there were significant differences in the

number of responses. These results suggest that the

system was enjoyable and that it spurred children’

interest in observing animals’ anatomies and

behaviors in zoo.

Future tasks include the more specific analysis of

the effectiveness of this system regarding whether

this systems supports the scientific observation of

anatomies and behaviors of penguins by using

animation. In addition, future tasks can include the

development and implementation of the system for

other animals.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was supported by JSPS KAKENHI

Grant Number 24240100. We are grateful Kobe

Municipal Oji Zoo which made this study possible.

REFERENCES

Betrancourt, M. and Chassot, A. (2008). Making sense of

animation: How do children explore multimedia

instruction? In: R. Lowe and W. Schnotz, eds.,

Learning with animation: Research implications for

design, 1

ed. New York: Cambridge University Press,

pp. 149–164.

Preliminary Evaluation of a System for Helping Children Observe the Anatomies and Behaviors of Animals in a Zoo

309

Eberbach, C. and Crowley, K. (2009). From everyday to

scientific observation: How children learn to observe

the biologist's world. Review of Educational Research,

79, pp. 39–68.

Falk, J. H. (2014). Evidence for the educational value of

zoos and aquariums. WAZA Magazine, 15, pp. 10-13.

Mallapur, A., Waran, N. and Sinha, A. (2008). The captive

audience: The educative influence of zoos on their

visitors in India. International Zoo Yearbook, 42, pp.

214–224.

National Research Council. (2009). Learning science in

informal environments: People, place, and pursuits.

Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Ohashi, Y., Ogawa, H. and Arisawa, M. (2008). Making a

new learning environment in zoo by adopting mobile

devices. Proceedings of the 10th International

Conference on Human Computer Interaction with

Mobile Devices and Services, pp. 489–490.

Patrick, P. G. and Tunnicliffe, S. D. (2013). Zoo talk.

Netherlands: Springer.

Perdue, B. M., Clay, A. W., Gaalema, D. E., Maple, T. L.

and Stoinski, T. S. (2012). Technology at the zoo: the

influence of a touch screen computer on orang-utans

and zoovisitors. Zoo Biology, 31, pp. 27–39.

Prokop, P. and Prokop M., Tunnicliffe S. D., and Diran, C.

(2007). Children’s ideas of animals’ internal structures.

Journal of Biological Education, 41, pp. 62-67.

Shreesha, M. and Tyagi, S. (2016). Does animation

facilitate better learning in primary education? A

comparative study of three different subjects. Creative

Education, 7, pp. 1800–1809.

Suzuki, M., Hatono, I., Ogino, T., Kusunoki, F.,

Sakamoto, H., Sawada, K., Hoki, Y. and Ifuku, K.

(2009). LEGS system in a zoo: Use of mobile phones

to enhance observation of animals. In: Proceedings of

the 8th International Conference on Interaction Design

and Children. Como: ACM, pp. 222–225.

Tanaka, Y., Egusa, R., Yamaguchi, E., Inagaki, S.,

Kusunoki, F., Okuyama, H. and Nogami, T. (2016).

Supporting Zoo Visitors’ Scientific Observations with

a Mobile Guide. In: Proceedings of the 8th

International Conference on Computer Supported

Education (CSEDU2016), Vol. 2, Rome:

SCITEPRESS, pp.353-358.

Tunnicliffe S. D. and Reiss M. J. (1999). Students’

understandings about animal skeletons. International

Journal of Science Education, 21, pp. 1187–1200.

Webber, S., Carter, M., Smith, Wally, S. and Vetere, F.

(2017). Interactive technology and human-animal

encounters at the zoo, International Journal of Human-

Computer Studies, 98, pp. 150-168.

Wagoner, B. and Jensen, E. (2010). Science learning at the

zoo: Evaluation children’s developing understanding of

animals and their habitats, Psychology & Society, 3, pp.

65–76.

CSEDU 2017 - 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

310