Version 1
: Received: 15 June 2017 / Approved: 16 June 2017 / Online: 16 June 2017 (05:32:18 CEST)
How to cite:
Sussman, K. Are Mobile Live Animal Programs Educationally Beneficial? A Critical Assessment of the Human Learning Component Underlying Traveling Animal Exhibits. Preprints2017, 2017060077. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201706.0077.v1
Sussman, K. Are Mobile Live Animal Programs Educationally Beneficial? A Critical Assessment of the Human Learning Component Underlying Traveling Animal Exhibits. Preprints 2017, 2017060077. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201706.0077.v1
Sussman, K. Are Mobile Live Animal Programs Educationally Beneficial? A Critical Assessment of the Human Learning Component Underlying Traveling Animal Exhibits. Preprints2017, 2017060077. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201706.0077.v1
APA Style
Sussman, K. (2017). Are Mobile Live Animal Programs Educationally Beneficial? A Critical Assessment of the Human Learning Component Underlying Traveling Animal Exhibits. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201706.0077.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Sussman, K. 2017 "Are Mobile Live Animal Programs Educationally Beneficial? A Critical Assessment of the Human Learning Component Underlying Traveling Animal Exhibits" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201706.0077.v1
Abstract
This paper assesses whether there is intrinsic positive educational value in travelling animal presentations and exhibits, referred to here as Mobile Live Animal Programs (MLAPs). Given that educational claims serve as the basis for allowing MLAPs to operate in many jurisdictions throughout Canada and the United States, it is essential to examine whether these purported claims are valid. This study takes a twofold approach of examining first, what constitutes an MLAP and how such programs are situated within the larger context of animal observation and tourism, and second, what constitutes both positive and negative education, and how such learning can empirically be measured in these settings. This approach provokes the ethical question of whether or not MLAPs should be allowed to operate given the high price paid not only by the individual animals used, but also to our psychological, emotional, and intellectual relationship with other species when we use non-human animals for our own knowledge, pleasure or comfort. The paper concludes that we must consider that the pervasive problem of negative education, that using displaced captive wild animals as learning tools that highlights human control over them, their objectification and their exploitation, is not justified by the purported positive educational claims of MLAPs.
Keywords
zoo; mobile zoo; mobile animal exhibits; animal display; mobile live animal programs; negative education
Subject
Social Sciences, Education
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
