RattlEd: Improving perceptions of rattlesnakes in elementary classrooms

Bachhuber, Owen M.

obachhub@calpoly.edu

Turkstra, Joy M.              

Bigelow-Gee, Ariel S.                                                                                                                                 

Coleman, Riley                                                                                                                                             

Alonso Martinez, Litzy M.                                                                                                                              

Roberts, Max C.                                                                                                                                             

Nation, Jasmine M.                                                                                                                                          

Taylor, Emily N.

California Polytechnic State University              

Physiological Ecology of Reptiles Lab (PERL)                                                                                         

San Luis Obispo, California USA

Rattlesnakes are widely killed where their habitat overlaps with humans, increasing the risk of bites and challenging wildlife conservation. Fear, disgust, and knowledge have been shown to predict the moral acceptability of killing snakes. Project RattleCam was founded in 2020 to improve perceptions of rattlesnakes while engaging community scientists in studying their ecology. We created a science curriculum for third through fifth graders called RattlEd to amplify Project RattleCam’s impact on young audiences. RattlEd aligns with Next Generation Science Standards, engaging students as scientists in a range of activities including studying snake behavior using the livestream, creating models, playing games, and engineering a wildlife crossing. We evaluated how the RattlEd curriculum changes student knowledge and perceptions of snakes using a tripartite survey that students complete before and after the RattlEd unit. The survey asked students to draw a moment in a rattlesnake’s day, write a short paragraph describing their drawing, and answer three Likert-style questions about how much they like, fear, and are disgusted by rattlesnakes. Student drawings were manually coded by researchers, and ATLAS.ti also analyzed the themes and sentiments of the students’ descriptions of their drawings. All RattlEd lesson plans, teaching materials, and science notebook activities are available at RattleCam.org. We hope this curriculum will serve as a model for engaging students in community science while fostering empathy and understanding for misunderstood wildlife.