Slides from Oct Conservation on Tap

View Sophia’s presentation deck.

We also had some questions about getting people engaged in monarch conservation. Sophia reached out to her colleague, Megan Jones, PhD candidate at Colorado State University. Megan very graciously provided this information from her research:

1. Norms and efficacy: I have attached a recent social psych paper from my research on how these two types of beliefs might influence people’s native plant gardening – and their willingness to talk to others about it. In the discussion section you’ll see we talk about some implications for conservation outreach professionals like yourself. We’re just writing up findings from a mail-based messaging experiment, which I could also send you once that’s published.
2. Social-ecological systems and behavior: I have also attached my PhD dissertation – you can check out the third research chapter to get a sense of what I found influences people’s native plant gardening and their willingness to talk to others about it in an exploratory study. The peer-reviewed paper from this chapter is in review, so I could send that to you once it’s published.
3. Other practitioners: I’ve come across some amazing work being done by outreach programs, some of which might be helpful models for you – in particular, I’d recommend checking out Audubon Rockies’ Habitat Hero program, and reaching out to your local Wild Ones group if there is one. I also had a wonderful conversation with Niel Dibold of Prairie Nursery, based out of Wisconsin, about native plants, and they might be a good nursery partner for your program.
4. The Colorado Pollinator Summit is going virtual this year because of COVID – you could consider attending that to learn more and make connections? https://butterflies.org/copollinatornetwork/