Ada Collins

CORN296 Wildlife Education and Media in Practice

Evaluation of educational event

In our second semester, we (Wildlife education and media Second year students) were given the task
to plan and deliver an evening-based educational experience or event. In this experience we, as a group,
needed to plan this event, liaising with partner organisations, assessing the risks involved and create a
successful evening. First, we needed to decide what type of event we would hold such as an evening
talk, games night, pub quiz etc.

We wanted to host a social event for the people of Newquay that are interested or concerned with
conservation, the environment and our effect on its deuteriation however, we wanted discuss it in an
non-threatening and casual environment. To achieve this, we decided to use our relationship with a
local popular bar within the town of Newquay to hold our event (as seen in figure 1). The event was
to celebrate what we can do to help the planet rather than focusing on the negative effects we have
already had on the planet. We got in contact with whiskers and were given dates to choose from, their
floor plan and the bars risk assessments. We decided on the 29th March 2019; this gave us a 3 week
deadline to ensure we had everything planned and ready.

Figure 1- Outside of venue (Whiskers)

The plan for the evening was to split into different conservational areas of interest and do a walk
through around whiskers where guests can discover each subject. We decided to split into four groups
of pollinators, deforestation, plastic pollution and overall carbon footprints; each group decided on
creative and fun ways to portray our theme. By holding our event in a bar, it already gave us a target
audience of over 18 therefore our activities needed to be enjoyable for that age range. With previous
experience in events/displays being for younger audiences (Punc’t events at Newquay zoo), it was
exciting to be able to do something completely new and for people of our own age and similar interests-
this relation with our audience made it easier for us to figure out what they would enjoy/ find
interesting.

I was given the theme of Pollinators with one of my classmates and our main aim was to somehow
display the journey of pollinators or more specially the journey of bees. I wanted the guests to
experience the journey that bees take to pollinate our plants which is where I came up with the idea of
using Virtual reality (VR). Virtual reality is an experience that takes place within a computer generated
reality of immersive environments that can be similar to or completely different from the real world.
Applications of virtual reality can include entertainment and educational purposes (Burdea and
Coiffet, 2003). For full amercement and realistic experiences a headset and headphones are used with
360° visuals (Steuer, 1992). My team member had prior knowledge on pollinators and knew that he
wanted to incorporate education on seeds and flowers into our stand so he took on the role of finding
a way to involve that and I focused on a way of using VR on our stand. Through research, I found a
360° headset compatible campaign video showing a ‘honey bees journey’ and with a VR headset
already in my possession from a previous event, we were set to go. Every member of our team trialled
the VR experience to ensure everyone was happy with it being used on the day. We also handed out
sachets of wildflower seeds as something to take away with them- the packaging had a Zappar code
that linked to the care instructions.

Figure 2- Photo showing myself and my teammate assisting a guest using the VR experience head set.
 Figure 3 Pollinator information pack and sachets of Wildflower
seeds with printed Zappar code linking to care instructions.

The other stands designed by our group included a Fortune telling booth that calculated guests carbon
footprint using an online recourse, a deforestation stand that used the Zappar AR app to give fact on
the subject and a plastic pollution stand that explained the different plastics that can be recycled and
with this, a multiple choice game to help explain it and finally, we all participated in organising a free
raffle on completion of a Zappar app quiz as entry. The raffle prizes were supplied by local
environmentally conscious businesses, local restaurants, hotels and the national trust charity.

Figure 4 Table of raffle prizes as well as information sheets on the companies that supplied us with them.
Overall, the event was a success; we had a good turnout of approximately 75 people that attended
throughout the night and on speaking to guest the majority had enjoyed the night and learnt something
new. The venue was busy with people and each of our group members always had a role to do as well
as doing a door rotation where we welcomed guests and gave them the raffle entry code for the Zappar
app (figure 4). The event was full of positive conversations about the environment and how we can be
more environmentally friendly. Guests were excited about being given the chance enter and win a
raffle for free. The VR experience proved popular as it is a new and exciting piece of technology and
people looked forward to taking part as it is something not many people have used before.

Figure 5 Raffle entry code and instructions on how to

download and use the Zappar App

Figure 6 Guests and hosts at the event held at Whiskers

In evaluation, there are some elements that could use improvement. With a closing deadline, members
of the group lacked communication with each other and many did very similar activities with many
using the Zappar app as their main activity. This resulted in the event being slightly antisocial at the
beginning as everyone was on their phones getting to grips with the app, how to use it and entering the
raffle by doing the online quiz. This made it difficult to begin conversations with people as their
attention was on their phones rather than the stalls that we spent time on. In the future, more
communication will result in more variety of activities and recourses. Despite everyone being happy
to enter the raffle for free, I think it was a missed opportunity to raise some money for an organisation
or charity that aligns with our theme of being environmentally friendly.

With about 75 people attending, we were very happy with the turn out however this could be improved
in the future with more social networking and outreach to other members of the community in
Newquay rather than just Cornwall College students. Due to confusion and again, lack of
communication the page for our event was deleted resulting in a large decrease in potential guests and
despite our efforts to send out the page again, it didn’t get as much attention as the original posts did.

Overall, I think this event gave us insight and confidence in creating and hosting future events. I really
enjoyed the creative side of things such as designing posters and using the floor plan to decide where
we wanted each stand to go for the best walk through experience possible.
References

Burdea, G. and Coiffet, P. (2003) Virtual reality technology. J. Wiley-Interscience.

Steuer, J. (1992) ‘Defining Virtual Reality: Dimensions Determining Telepresence’, Journal of

Communication. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd (10.1111), 42(4), pp. 73–93. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-
2466.1992.tb00812.x.