Our stakeholder research centered upon our conversations with educators, museum professionals and herbarium professionals. After our sessions, however, we became curious to know how (or if) their interests aligned with those of the public. More fundamentally, we wondered: Just what do people find interesting about plants, anyway?
The following are the results of a survey we quickly brought together as a google form and deployed in July of 2021. We promoted it through a range of channels that were accessible and convenient (a campus public announcements mailing list, a student mailing list, etc.)—and heavily biased towards the Brown university campus community. As such, we offer the survey results with the caveat that we conducted the survey in a spirit of curiosity over rigor.
The total number of survey respondents was 405.
Results
The following are the questions with a summary of responses.
Are you currently a post-secondary (college-level) student?
Are you currently a pre-college (for example, high school) student?
Are you a current or former student in the biological sciences?
How frequently do you find yourself curious about plants? (curious enough, for example, to look closely at a plant or google for plant information)
| Never or seldom—I don’t really think about plants except in very general terms | 11 (2.7%) |
| Yearly or occasionally—for example, when buying or repotting a houseplant | 29 (7.1%) |
| Monthly or seasonally—I notice them occasionally | 126 (30.9%) |
| At least weekly—plants are a consistent part of my life | 241 (59.1%) |
| Every day! I love gardening and house plants. | 1 (0.02%) |
How curious are you about …
Value shown is the average score on a scale of 0 to 4. The questions have been re-ordered from the original survey from greatest to least interest.
| Question | Mean ranking (0–4) |
|---|---|
| being able to identify a plant | 3.22 |
| the plants in my garden | 3.20 |
| plants and climate change | 3.20 |
| the plants in my living space | 3.16 |
| the plants we eat | 3.12 |
| the plants in medicines | 3.05 |
| use of plants by indigenous nations | 3.05 |
| native and invasive plants | 3.00 |
| the plants I see around my area | 2.94 |
| beautiful or aesthetic plants | 2.91 |
| dangerous and poisonous plants | 2.88 |
| the plants where I grew up | 2.69 |
| plants through history, across cultures | 2.69 |
| carnivorous plants | 2.65 |
| plants from around the world | 2.65 |
| rare or extinct plants | 2.64 |
| different families of plants | 2.17 |
| famous plants (in pop culture, etc.) | 2.14 |
| the stories of scientists, explorers, etc. who discovered or collected plants | 1.97 |
It is interesting to note that two of the areas often cited by our experts—plant taxonomy (listed as families of plants) and scientist profiles (listed as the stories of scientists, explorers, etc. who discovered or collected plants)—rank among the least interesting to the broader public.
Associated areas of interest
The data showed that some areas of interest tend to coincide. We identified 4 groupings that point towards a typology of audience interests.
(Note: We have included the ranking of each area of interest in parentheses, and bolded those entries that are in the top 50% most popular)
Group 1: The global, the human
The largest grouping centered on the global perspective and plants as from a humanistic perspective. Closely associated interests in this group are:
- plants through history, across cultures (13)
- use of plants by indigenous nations (7)
- plants from around the world (15)
- the stories of scientists, explorers, etc. who discovered or collected plants (19)
- different families of plants (17)
- plants and climate change (3)
Less strongly associated interests in this group are:
- native and invasive plants (8)
- being able to identify a plant (1)
Is this group of interests more attractive to people with an overall interest in plants? We can get a sense of this by looking at these areas of interest relative to respondents’ response to question #5: “How frequently do you find yourself curious about plants? (curious enough, for example, to look closely at a plant or google for plant information)“).
The chart above shows that overall there is not a strong association with this interest group and being more or less interested in plants overall—with a couple of exceptions (interest in plant families and plants from around the world are both associated with an overall interest in plants).
Group 2: The dramatic, the sexy
In contrast to Group 1, this group of interests tend towards the unusual, exotic, and dramatic in the plant world.
Associated interests in group 2 are:
- rare or extinct plants (16)
- dangerous and poisonous plants (11)
- famous plants (in pop culture, etc.) (18)
- carnivorous plants (14)
- beautiful or aesthetic plants (10)
(although this is a bit of an outlier in this group)
While groups 1 and 2 tend to be quite distinct form each other, there is a shared interest in native and invasive plants (associated particularly with group 2’s interest in poisonous plants!).
While closely associated with each other, these interests tended to belong to a niche, rather than a broad population.
Looking at this group of interests relative to overall interest in plants reveals that respondents who are less interested in plants overall will tend to be interested in this group of topics. This suggests that Group 2 topics could be used to draw reluctant audiences.
Group 3: The local, the everyday
This grouping of associated interests focuses on plants encountered in everyday life.
Associated interests in group 3 are:
- the plants I see around my area (9)
- the plants where I grew up (12)
- the plants in my garden (2)
- the plants in my living space (4)
There is a loose affinity with this interest group and interest in being able to identify a plant.
Looking at these areas of interest relative to overall plant curiosity, we see that the more interested respondents were in plants overall, the more likely they were to be interested in Group 3:
Group 4: Plants as consumables
Two outliers that are associated with each other involve plants as consumable products:
- the plants we eat (5)
- the plants in medicines (6)
While overall these are not closely associated with other interests, there is a (very) loose association between plants in medicines and plants through history, across cultures, and between plants we eat and native and invasive plants.
Interestingly, there is no significant general association between plants we eat and plants in my garden.
Looking at these areas of interest relative to overall plant curiosity, we see that these Group 4 interests tended to be shared by those with overall less interest in plants—like Group 2, these topics could act as a draw to newcomers to plants.
Access to the survey data
If you are interested in viewing the full results of the survey, please feel free to contact us.
