Program on the Environment

Pollinators are responsible for ⅓ of all the food we eat; however, due to habitat degradation, populations are facing decline. Conservation efforts are growingly essential to save pollinators, but low ecological literacy, the understanding of our ecosystem and what we can do for it, is a barrier to success. The purpose of this study is to understand how combining education and conservation techniques can increase ecological literacy in adult lay populations. To answer the question, I interned with Pollinator Pathway Northwest (PPNW), a nonprofit organization with the aim of creating a regional wildlife corridor through individual homeowner gardens. Together, we identified concerns and opportunities, from which a survey and interview were created and conducted. Results were organized using thematic analysis and combined with observation and review of the literature. Findings suggest that conservation actions scaled to the homeowner level act as nature-based active learning, and when combined with education about natural history, ecology, and environmental culture, can increase ecological literacy and serve as an entry point into global environmental action. This approach has a wide range of benefits for individuals, communities, and the globe. Increasing wildlife corridors actively limits the impacts of habitat degradation, increasing access to nature and therefore biophilia. Combining conservation and education can reduce the types / severity of barriers to homeowners, which is particularly important for the social and economic categories. Finally, homeowner actions can be combined and scaled to approach global issues, such as climate change, drought, and resource use.