DOI: 10.5061/dryad.dz08kprzp
title: Exploring integrated ArtScience experiences to foster nature connectedness through head, heart, and hand

description: 1. Human activities continue to inflict profound detrimental impacts on
 biodiversity, yet we have not observed a commensurate shift in people’s
 mindsets to achieve a more harmonious relationship between people and
 nature. As such, the need to shift the publics’ perspective and awareness
 of their interconnectedness with nature continues to drive education and
 communication programs that aim to deepen the connection between people
 and nature.  2. This has led to mounting interest in integrating
 art with science as an influential communication practice to tackle
 complex concepts such as climate change and biodiversity loss. Art can
 provide alternative pathways of knowing and understanding the ecological
 crisis through provoking embodied, mindful, and emotional responses. The
 arts create a dais for personal expression and reflection that traditional
 education and outreach methods typically cannot. 3. Here, we explore an
 arts-based approach to science communication and nature connectedness
 through a series of participatory ArtScience workshops. These workshops
 were delivered at The Living Pavilion, an Indigenous-led, temporary event
 space that took place in Melbourne, Australia. An integrated and
 transdisciplinary approach using interactive and participatory ArtScience
 workshops underpins the key outcomes and findings of this research. 4. Our
 analysis revealed three themes emerging from the participants’ experience:
 discovery, where participants learn or discover something new about
 biodiversity which is a thrilling and motivating experience; being in a
 state of flow where participants are intrinsically motivated, focussed and
 find joy in the activity; and attunement, where participants experience
 ecological awareness, relational knowing and a mindful connection to
 nature. 5. Integrating the head, heart, and hands learning framework into
 the ArtScience workshops allowed a more nuanced and ground-up approach to
 our research and helped further understanding of how people create
 connections to more than human nature. The interrelated themes of
 discovery, flow and attunement open the potential for new ways of noticing
 and knowing nature, creating an embodied and holistic relationship with
 the more than human world. We suggest this is a strong foundation to
 deepen ecological awareness, which may lead to subtle yet positive changes
 in attitudes and behaviours towards biodiversity at a local level.
description: Our research took place within the temporary event space of The
 Living Pavilion (Fig 1, Box 1). During the event, we ran three
 biodiversity-themed ArtScience workshops to explore people’s subjective
 experience and connection to nature in urban environments (Figs 2-3).
 Previous research on nature connectedness has focused on the use of
 psychometric scales to quantify the relationship between people and nature
 (e.g. Mayer and Frantz 2004; Hatty et al. 2020).  Here, however, we take a
 more qualitative and nuanced approach, evaluating people’s relationship
 with nature through facilitated sensorial experiences. We delivered these
 experiences through a series of ArtScience workshops, which combined
 ecological presentations and activities with a participatory arts practice
 – a design through which we sought to integrate and engage participants’
 active use of head (concepts and critical reflection), heart (emotional
 learning and relational knowing) and hand (deep engagement). We further
 designed a qualitative survey for workshop participants and conducted
 semi-structured qualitative interviews with a sub-sample of participants.
 This set of methods successfully yielded nuanced insights into how people
 learn and feel connected to the more than human world.
 We recruited participants through online advertisement and social
 media platforms. Twenty participants consented to be part of the study,
 attended one or more workshops, and completed the post-workshop
 questionnaire. Of these, six agreed and participated in the
 semi-structured qualitative interviews. A limitation of this approach is
 that participants might have demonstrated self-selection bias, as they are
 likely to have had a pre-existing interest in science, nature, or
 arts-based activities. Additionally, given the small sample size,
 participants might not represent a full cross-section of those who
 attended The Living Pavilion event. However, in terms of the broader
 themes emerging from the ArtScience experiences, we reached coding
 saturation (i.e. no new themes were emerging from the data) during
 analysis and therefore consider our sample size appropriate for this
 qualitative study.  All participants provided written
 and informed consent before the workshops and interviews. To ensure
 anonymity, we removed participant names and use pseudonyms in the text. We
 have used photos to illustrate key elements of the research – all
 participants have likewise provided consent for this purpose.
 The research was granted approval from the Architecture, Building
 and Planning Human Ethics Advisory Group on 29 April 2019 as Minimal Risk.
 All research was carried out according to the conditions of the ethics
 approval. Ethics ID: 1953905.2, for the period: 29 April to 31 December
 2019.  Pseudonyms for participants names have been used to de-identify
 them in the text. All participants were self-selected through an online
 booking system. Some participants were recruited opportunistically on the
 day of the workshops.   Each participant read a plain language statement
 and signed a consent form to be part of the research project.  The project
 received ethical approval from the University of Melbourne Ethics Advisory
 Group. A more comprehensive description of the methods
 employed in this study, including workshop descriptions, qualitative
 interviews, surveys, and thematic analysis are given in Renowden (2019).
 More detailed information and background on the participants who attended
 The Living Pavilion is provided in Beer et al. (2019).
 <strong>1. ArtScience workshops</strong>
 2.1.1 Frog Ensemble This workshop was focused
 on frogs. We first presented participants with key background ecological
 information on locally, indigenous frogs. The presentation also covered
 current conservation topics, such as the global amphibian extinction
 crisis, and included practical advice on how to identify frogs by their
 unique breeding calls. We then invited participants to move through the
 event’s frog soundscape, which included the breeding calls of eight
 indigenous frog species known to have occurred at the site prior to
 urbanisation (Fig 3a,d). We identified each frog call for participants,
 providing a description of their habitat requirements, reproductive
 strategies, and conservation status (Table_S2_SuppInfo). We encouraged
 participants to take time to listen closely to the frog calls (Fig 2a). We
 used this approach as mindful listening in nature enables people to
 explore novel and deeper ways of connecting with the environment and
 contemplating their place in the world (Paine 2003).  Following this, we
 asked participants to create frog sounds and musical tones with random
 objects provided. However, the participants started to lose interest, and
 one stated in their feedback that they felt “a bit childish” doing this
 activity. To ensure we didn’t lose engagement of the participants and to
 give them the opportunity to respond creatively, and reflect on something
 they had learnt, felt, or experienced during the workshop we asked
 participants to create a piece of visual art as an alternative (Fig 2d).
 To this purpose, we offered participants a series of art materials,
 including paper, magazine cut-outs, frog photos, watercolour paints,
 permanent markers, pencils, and pre-cut zines
 (Figure_S1_SuppInfo).  2.1.2 Biodiversity
 Snapshot This workshop focused on insect pollinators.
 First, we introduced participants to ten indigenous and introduced species
 likely to be found in the study site (Fig 3b,e; Table_S3-Supp Info).
 Species were described using images that highlighted the insects’ general
 morphology and behaviour, and which included cues to assist with species
 identification. Next, we invited participants to select a plant in flower
 somewhere in the site and observe it carefully for five-minutes while
 recording any plant-insect pollinator interactions observed (Fig 2b). We
 encouraged participants to record observations in at least two different
 plant species. This experience was based on the ‘Pollinator Observatories’
 community science approach developed by Mata and colleagues (2020).
 Finally, we provided participants with a macro clip-on lens for their
 smart phones and asked them to capture photos of flowers and insects (Fig
 2e). We produced small polaroid print outs of participants’ photos with a
 portable printer and encouraged participants to write on them a comment
 about their plant-insect observation experience
 (Figure_S2_SuppInfo). 2.1.3 Ephemeral in
 Nature The focus of this workshop was on the Kulin
 Nations indigenous plant species that were brought into the study site
 during The Living Pavilion (Fig 1, Box 1; Fig 3c,f; Table_S1_SuppInfo).
 First, we used the same suite of insect pollinators from the Biodiversity
 Snapshot workshop to illustrate to participants the inter-relationships
 between insect pollinators and indigenous plants. We then guided
 participants around the site and encouraged them to seek out and identify
 the indigenous plants with help from an identification booklet created
 specifically for the workshop. Throughout the site walk, in which
 participants were encouraged to physically interact with plants, we
 discussed how indigenous plants provide food and habitat resources for
 insects and other species (Fig 2c).  Finally, we asked participants to
 produce a ‘botanical collage’ (Fig 2f; Figure_S2_SuppInfo). For this
 purpose, we provided participants with natural materials, including
 flowers, leaves, bark, and seed pods. This tactile and hands-on approach
 was inspired by the book ‘Through Vegetal Being’ (Irigarary and Marder
 2016), where ideas were explored around personal interactions with the
 vegetal world and how this may create engaging and meaningful experiences
 that respects the existence of plants as sentinel beings.
  
 <strong>2. Qualitative
 survey</strong> Surveys were given to
 participants at the end of the workshop and took between 15-20 minutes to
 complete. The survey included: (1) a four item, five-point Likert scale,
 seeking to capture workshop enjoyment and engagement; (2) ten open-ended
 questions, designed to provide an opportunity to expand on workshop
 experiences and perceptions; (3) five demographic questions; and (4)
 question regarding expressions of interest to participate in the interview
 process (Box_S1_SuppInfo).<b> </b>We used this qualitative
 survey to gain a more nuanced understanding of participants attitudes,
 values, beliefs, and opinions towards, and perceived outcomes from, the
 workshops (Walter 2010).   
 <strong>3. Qualitative interviews</strong>
 We conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with six
 participants between four and six weeks after they attended the workshops.
 Interviews followed a schedule of thematic questions (Box_S2_SuppInfo),
 beginning with personal background, understanding of biodiversity, and
 motivations for participating in the workshop. We formulated the interview
 in accordance with the study’s underlining transformative learning
 experience framework, including specific questions structured around the
 operating principles of head, heart, and hand. Questions sought to reveal
 what participants had learned about the ecological topic of the workshop
 they attended, the types of experiences and emotions they had (e.g. joy,
 sense of losing track of time, boredom), and when they felt most
 connected. Questions were further conceptualised to capture moments when
 participants felt ‘struck’ or ‘ah-ha’ moments – an instant where one seeks
 to move and change the way of thinking and acting (Wittgenstein
 1980).  We also used visual elicitation during the
 interviews to discuss the artworks created during the workshops. We
 explored with participants what they were hoping to portray in their
 artwork, what they wanted to showcase, and why they created it. We
 complemented the interviews with this approach as it can reveal feelings,
 details, and memories associated with experience at the time of the event
 (Bagnoli 2009); and assist in reflection for both researcher and
 participant, uncovering a more thoughtful level of communication and
 understanding (Cohenmiller 2018).  <strong>4. Thematic
 analysis</strong> We conducted a thematic
 analysis of our data following the six-stage framework proposed by Braun
 and Clarke (2006). First, we read and re-read the visual and textual data,
 including workshop observations, survey responses, interview transcripts,
 and participants’ artworks, noting down initial impressions. Next, we
 systematically organised the data, developing differences and similarities
 between events, actions, and interactions into codes. We used incident by
 incident rather than line by line coding to create a strong basis for data
 comparisons, an approach that is particularly useful for in-depth
 interviews (Liamputtong 2013). We then searched for broader themes – those
 that were descriptive, relevant, or captured something interesting or
 significant regarding our research question. We streamlined the themes
 within the head, heart, and hands framework, based on whether they aligned
 with cognitive understanding and learning, relational knowing and
 connection, or deep engagement. Finally, we refined and defined the
 themes.