What I wish that zoo and aquarium leadership would realize is that serious education and research is not the antithesis of fun. Visitors adore the dinosaur displays in museums, where they can also watch scientists behind glass actively working on examining fossils and doing other laboratory work. No one denies that this is real science. Why not do more to put a public face on zoo science? Have a blank wall? Hang posters of presentations of the scientific research done at the facility. Have a window? Show diets being formulated, or animals being weighed (as well as charts of those weights to show the growth curves). Have a social species? Share an ethogram so visitors can do their own behavioral studies - and take the opportunity to explain science-driven animal welfare.
Science is fun. Most people who become keepers know that (organic chemistry being the exception, in my experience). Sharing that simple fact can help zoos and aquariums inspire future scientists.
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