Action

Action Synopsis: Bird Conservation About Actions

Provide bird feeding materials to families with young children

How is the evidence assessed?
  • Effectiveness
    42%
  • Certainty
    20%
  • Harms
    0%

Study locations

Key messages

A single replicated before-and-after study from the USA found that most children involved in a programme providing families with bird food increased their knowledge of birds, but there was no significant change in environmental attitudes.

About key messages

Key messages provide a descriptive index to studies we have found that test this intervention.

Studies are not directly comparable or of equal value. When making decisions based on this evidence, you should consider factors such as study size, study design, reported metrics and relevance of the study to your situation, rather than simply counting the number of studies that support a particular interpretation.

Supporting evidence from individual studies

  1. A replicated before-and-after study in 65 families containing at least 1 child provisioned with bird feeding and educational materials for use in urban gardens in the USA (Beck et al. 2001) found that younger children showed significant gains in bird knowledge but there was no systematic change in environmental attitudes. Forty-nine (75%) children improved in bird knowledge, six (9%) showed no change and ten (15%) declined. Post-program scores were significantly higher than pre-program scores for both younger boys and girls (7-9 years old) but not older children (10-12 years old). Positive change was correlated with higher education levels of parents. Environmental attitudes, however, did not change and declined for one subgroup of children (younger boys). Over 80% of parents felt the program increased family interaction and 80% reported they will still watching and feeding birds a year later. Of the children, 44% were boys and 56% girls.

    Study and other actions tested
Please cite as:

Williams, D.R., Child, M.F., Dicks, L.V., Ockendon, N., Pople, R.G., Showler, D.A., Walsh, J.C., zu Ermgassen, E.K.H.J. & Sutherland, W.J. (2020) Bird Conservation. Pages 137-281 in: W.J. Sutherland, L.V. Dicks, S.O. Petrovan & R.K. Smith (eds) What Works in Conservation 2020. Open Book Publishers, Cambridge, UK.

 

Where has this evidence come from?

List of journals searched by synopsis

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Bird Conservation

This Action forms part of the Action Synopsis:

Bird Conservation
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What Works in Conservation

What Works in Conservation provides expert assessments of the effectiveness of actions, based on summarised evidence, in synopses. Subjects covered so far include amphibians, birds, mammals, forests, peatland and control of freshwater invasive species. More are in progress.

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