This page is for material related to the International Biogeography Society. Since June 2024 I have become the chairperson of the Education Committee, taking over from Mark Lomolino, who had been the first and only previous chairman of the committee. I presented a few ideas for what the Education committee might focus on in the near future during a June 3, 2024 virtual board meeting of the IBS, but here I lay out more details. At the moment these are just my ideas, not a consensus of the IBS Education Committee, or the IBS. Such is the advantage of a personal website – one can write almost anything – without the quality control of those who know better!
A link to the Viki Funk talk I gave recently is here. At least the slides are – I may add commentary in the future. The YouTube presentation on the IBS page is here. Some of the talk titles I’ve given on 12 cruises since August 2022 are here. And quite a few educational plaques, photographed over the years in different parts of the world can be seen here. I am working on several web pages that describe aspects of island biogeography, one is here.
Where is the low-hanging fruit for advancing IBS Education and Outreach?
First a word about education versus outreach. I use these terms here in the following manner. Education refers to improving ways to teach the subject of biogeography. Classroom materials, lecturing styles, field work, reference books and articles etc. Things or techniques that an instructor, any any level from primary school to graduate school, can use to improve the education of students. This is the area that the IBS Education committee has mainly focused upon to date and materials are online on the IBS website.
Outreach, as I use it, refers to presenting biogeography to an audience outside of the traditional classroom setting. Public lectures and articles written for public consumption in newspapers or popular science magazines or websites are common examples. Many natural history books, written for the nature-oriented public, have extensive discussions on aspects of biogeography. Often, at least in Europe and the US, there is no lack of such materials. It is the lack of an audience that is often more of the problem.
The rise of the internet, together with social media, has led to a decrease in the attention span of most people. Thus, outreach materials need to be somewhat different than didactic material for university students, who must read and do what is required by the instructor.
My current thoughts about the areas for advancing public outreach by the IBS are the following.
- Provide biogeography-related talks aboard cruise ships.
- Develop contacts with educational institutions that can service cruise ship passenger needs for natural history-related shore excursions.
- Reach out to community college instructors with biogeography-related material for inclusion in their basic biology, geography, or earth science courses that they teach.
- develop a concise lecture(s) for secondary school teachers about earth and environmental sciences for motivating high school level students towards these fields.
Each of these activities require different levels of effort. Some have been initiated, others have not been discussed, let alone started. And there are likely many other valuable activities that are not listed above.
The challenges for the IBS
Currently, the IBS is a very small scientific society – perhaps 300 members. Membership peaks just prior to the Biennial Meetings where IBS membership discounts for the conference exist. Fundamental questions exist for the society.
- Should the IBS grow? If so, how (and to what size)?
- What unique can the IBS offer that members can’t already obtain elsewhere?
- What kind of gatherings work best for members? Many specialized gatherings or few larger ones?
- What focus should the IBS have? Current research topics or educational techniques and outreach?
- How to become a more inclusive Society – representing all parts of the World more equally?
There are many more questions that members will likely suggest.
Providing biogeography-related talks aboard cruise ships.
This is what I am currently exploring as a possibility. Since August 2022 I have provided “enrichment talks” during twelve cruises in different parts of the World. Below I describe what is involved in presenting these talks. I suggest readers first look at the summaries I have already put together at the following link: https://thetravelingnaturalist.org/cruise-ships-for-naturalists/ There are several associated links that also should be read – especially for those thinking about becoming a cruise ship lecturer! Despite these webpages, my perceptions gradually change and below are my latest (more concise!) thoughts about what is feasible for the IBS to become involved in related to cruise ship outreach.
What can the IBS do to reach the cruise ship audience?
More than 30 million passengers cruise each year, though many of these are multiple cruises by the same people. Unique “cruisers” (shorthand for passengers who cruise) are certainly less – perhaps 10-20 million? It is still a very large number, and these cruisers come from many countries – though showing a strong bias towards North America and Europe. The cruise industry is only now ramping up in China and Japan and India remains poorly represented among the cruise industry. Africa is likewise underrepresented in both passengers who travel and in destination ports for cruise ships.
In summary, there is a large and growing cruise ship audience for “enrichment talks” by speakers. Currently, there is no organized effort to attract such speakers from any particular subject area – a good speaker can give talks on any subject that the cruise line feels will contribute to bringing passengers aboard. I am suggesting that the IBS can initiate an organized effort with the aim of providing public lecturing experience to IBS members, and to reach a large public audience with interesting and important subjects related to biogeography.
Three parallel strategies are suggested to reach cruise ship audiences
To reach the widest cruise ship audience and have the largest overall impact at least three main thrusts are needed:
- Develop a cadre of speakers that can provide effective talks on a range of topics related to biogeography.
- Develop port- and cruise-specific video materials that can be shown to cruise passengers independent of any enrichment speaker presence aboard.
- Help local educational institutions develop nature-focused excursions for cruise ship passengers.
Each of these are discussed below.
Developing effective speakers for enrichment talks
What does it take to develop a cadre of motivated speakers willing to provide public lectures on a wide range of biogeography-related topics? Currently, most speakers aboard cruise ships are retired individuals who don’t need a salary, provided the cruise costs are covered. For younger IBS members, some financial support is essential. Cruise lines would have to be convinced that well-prepared speakers, capable of helping with shore excursions and specialized lecturing aboard, justify a salary as much as any entertainer.
Currently, cruise ships that support lecturers can take anyone, talking about almost any subject, that provides what passengers consider “enrichment” material. It can be trade between the new and old worlds in Colombus’s time. It can be about cybersecurity. It can be about history of Naval warefare. Polynesian culture. Almost any subject that can be presented in an entertaining manner is acceptable. From the cruise line’s perspective, they want to convince their customers that they are having a worthwhile time. So they can return and cruise again.
I was very surprised at the number of cruisers that have been on 20, 30, 40 or more cruises – I have asked my audiences this question. And a recent (this year) summary of what cruisers though was the most valuable activity during their cruise highlighted the enrichment talks. Clearly, at least among older cruisers of the Holland America line, the talks were valued.
The potential need for just one cruise line (Holland America – HAL) that I am familiar with can be estimated roughly as follows. There are ten HAL ships, ranging from 1400 passenger (pax) to 2600 pax capacity. If we take 1800 as an average and each ship roughly makes 10 cruises per year that need speakers, we have 100 cruises requiring speakers. These ships carry 1800 pax x 10 cruises x 10 ships = 180,000 pax. Perhaps twenty percent of these hear the talks, this is about 36,000 passengers per year. This estimate is very rough, but the numbers are in the ballpark, and likely on the low side. There are other cruise lines that also contract guest speakers, though the largest ships usually have short 7-day cruises and commonly don’t have speakers. When I mention “contract” I should say that I have formal “contracts” – but there is no pay, only the covering of cruise costs and related travel for myself and my wife (or any other person sharing the room). No transfer of funds.
Returning to the need for speakers, how does the IBS find 100 speaker assignments per year? One could propose 10 full-time speakers to cover the needs of the ships. Of perhaps 20-30 speakers, spread over key cruising seasons and destinations, to cover most of the need. All such speakers, if not retired, would need some salary support in addition to the room and board that the ship provides.
How to prepare “IBS-certified” speakers for cruise ship “duty”?
I would suggest one or more online workshops to provide essential information to potential speakers for cruise ship duty. Such a workshop would cover aspects of the following material
- Cruise lines and ships, their structure, organization, and daily routines.
- Basic rules for all ship staff.
- Types of cruise passengers, their backgrounds, and what to expect from them.
- Competing activities for your time and attention aboard the ship.
- Speaking styles that work and don’t work. How to present your talk material.
- Developing a suitable background for different cruises.
- Websites to draw upon for real-time information.
Developing videos to summarize natural aspects of specific cruises and associated ports-of-call.
Most passengers on cruise ships do not come to the scheduled, and announced, enrichment talks. The largest room on most cruise ships, used by the paid entertainers, and also by the Enrichment speakers, cannot hold even half of the ship’s passengers at one time. That is why most entertainers have two performances for a given show (typically around 7 PM and 9 PM). Enrichment speakers typically give their talks in the morning or early afternoon. Both speakers and performers usually do not have their performances recorded – as a matter of ship policy. This may be due to copyright issues – I have asked if they could record mine and they told me that it was policy not to record.
I have estimated, from glances at my audience, that rarely do I have more than 20% of the passengers attending my talks. While this sounds poor, this is still hundreds of people.
Natural history talks, not surprisingly, attract passengers with an interest in the subject. This is good, but to have greatest impact one would like to motivate those passengers who don’t think they are interested in nature. These are the cruisers that you should also be trying to reach.
One solution to reaching passengers disinterested in nature is through short videos prepared for the ship’s TV channel. These can be watched at any hour in one’s stateroom. This is how essential information about the ship’s excursions and ports-of-call can currently be seen. It should be possible, with approval of the cruise line, to prepare short port-specific nature-oriented videos that provide details that would otherwise not be seen or heard by most passengers. The material would complement material presented by the enrichment speaker.
A major advantage of prepared natural history-related videos is that they can be seen by passengers on cruises where there are no lecturers present aboard. Many cruise lines do not have lecturers – these are the shorter, one week cruises, that focus on having a good time (“booze cruises”). These also tend to include some of the largest cruise ships. Likewise, cruises where there are very few sea days also generally don’t have lecturers. Special videos explaining natural aspects of such cruises and the ports they visit will likely reach a very large audience. If the passengers choose to look at them.
To be most widely used, such videos should be specific to cruise ports and specific ocean segments wherever feasible. This will require an intimate knowledge of the features around each port – ideally with input of local tourism and educational personnel.
While many people within the IBS community could produce materials for such videos, it is not clear just who would take the initiative to actually do this. Producing quality videos is not as simple as producing slide shows, and some thought should be put into this for select high priority routes.
What does the IBS get out of this? The connection between the global tourism sector and the IBS is probably the key selling point to the IBS. Credit lines on the videos plus the possibility of patrons supporting the development of future videos and and other IBS activities. And of course, a more environmentally-aware community at the global scale and in places the IBS and other conservation organizations currently have only limited impact or influence.
Helping local educational institutions develop and run nature-oriented excursions.
Suppose we have prepared our cruise ship passengers, via talks and videos, to see the spectacular natural aspects of their next port-of-call. How do they go about seeing what we’ve promised? This is where special tours are required. Why special? Because most tourism activity is intended to extract as much $$$ from visitors as possible, and nature-oriented tourism often doesn’t do this. To walk along a forest trail, look at birds and invertebrates along the shoreline, or examine rocks on a road-cut doesn’t usually require a steep admission fee to such attractions. But to find suitable locations to do these activities requires local knowledge, and to explain subtle features in these environments requires someone with a suitable background.
University tourism programs don’t usually prepare students to guide nature-seeking individuals, who often know more than their guides. And local guides often don’t really know what visitors know – or want to know. Commonly, local guides learn from the visitors they are guiding – not an ideal situation.
So how does one improve this situation? Several possibilities exist. Guides might be certified in some manner – to show they have some broad natural history background to help lead groups. Alternatively, the ship’s lecturer can help guide tours ashore – together with shore-based local personnel. A third possibility is to provide education to guides and local educational institutions about what cruise passengers expect in the way of natural history information. This would most likely have to be done via webinars and remote workshops. One has to be realistic about the challenge in doing this. It will be difficult to convert a Hospitality and Hotel Management student into a specialist in natural history overnight, but motivated students will see a way to develop the necessary background. There will, of course, need to be financial motivation, but this should be the case in a newly opening niche in the tourism sector at many of these ports.
To see how guides can be certified, one can look to South African guiding schools for ideas. In Africa many game parks and reserves, both public and private, need guides to provide guiding services. There are many guiding schools, some are listed below:
https://www.guidetrainingcourses.com/guide-courses
Some books from the last site (https://thenaturecollege.com/books/) are useful, in particular the ones “An introduction to nature guiding” and “The Nature Guide”. They give a flavor of the scope of natural history information good guides need, at least in African game parks and preserves. There is also useful information on how to interact with the public.
The value of iNaturalist
Every cruise has a talk where I stress the value of iNaturalist. For example, suppose a passenger is passionate about moths and wants to know what they are seeing. Imagine the situation shown in the video below. You finish the night of photography with perhaps photos of 50 different moths. But who can identify them? You can submit the observations to iNaturalist and ID’s will come back – sometimes almost immediately, sometimes never. But it will be fascinating to see the identification process and correspondence among the specialist “curators” who may be thousands of km away.
The video below was shot by my wife Rosario at our cabin’s back patio at the Ecoportal de Piedra (semi-deciduous forest 1000m elevation), in far northern Argentina in December 2024 (between cruises) after the rainy season was underway. Besides insects attracted to the ultraviolet light, there was a large tarantula circulating around us. To photograph insects at night, a flash is needed, as well as a macro (close-focusing) lens.
Exactly the same activity can be done in anyone’s back yard (for those cruise passengers who have such yards). There are many other tips I provide in my talks to help generate interest in nature among the passengers. In fact, I present material from the previous port of call, describe natural aspects of the upcoming port that cruisers should look for, and I mention the birds and other marine life we see daily over the open ocean. This is aimed at improving the powers of observation of the passengers and giving them a better understanding of life over the ocean. It’s not just whales out there!
THE NATURALIST'S TRAVEL PAGE 