Podcasting as a tool to take conservation education online

Abstract Traditional forms of higher learning include teaching in the classroom on college campuses and in‐person adult‐focused public outreach events for non‐students. Online college degree programs and public outreach platforms have been steadily emerging, and the COVID‐19 pandemic has, at least temporarily, forced all related ecology and evolutionary biology programs to move to online delivery. Podcasting is a form of online mass communication that is rapidly gaining popularity and has the flexibility to be incorporated into the pedagogical toolbox for the online classroom and remote public outreach programming. Podcasting is also becoming more popular in the ecology and evolutionary biology field. Here, we describe the great potential of podcasting to transform the learning experience, present a case study of success from the United States, provide a table of podcast recommended by ecologist responding to a listserv, and provide a road map for adoption and utilization of podcasting for the future.


| INTRODUC TI ON
Today, information is available like no other time in history. The general public and students alike can get information from traditional program delivery methods like classroom lectures, laboratories, field courses, workshops, seminars, and field days, but also from magazine articles, websites, and online videos. The term podcast, a combination of the words "iPod" and "broadcast" (Hendrickson et al. 2010), is defined as "a digital audio file created and then uploaded to an online platform to share with others" (Phillips, 2017). A major advantage of podcasts is that they allow audiences to listen to educational content asynchronously while engaged in other activities like driving, exercising, or working in the yard. According to google trends, which can be an effective indicator of the change in relative interest in a topic by global populations (Vosen & Schmidt, 2011), search volume for the term "podcast" has been increasing in relative interest (Figure 1).
Other trend in society also indicates that podcasting is increasing in popularity. For example, according to Edison Research (2017), 60% of people aged 12 and older were aware of the term "Podcasting," in 2017 as compared to only 22% in 2006. Also by 2017, 40% of the respondents had listened to a podcast, and 24% listened to podcasts monthly. Of the respondents that listened monthly, 77% of listeners are between the ages of 18 and 54, and another 16% were aged 55 or greater, thus a broad range of age demographics are regularly listening. Edison Research (2019) reported in the United States by 2019, 32% of people ≥12 years of age listened to a podcast in the last month, up from 9% in 2008. What is more, 22% of Americans ≥12 years of age are weekly podcast listeners, as compared to 7% in 2013 (Edison Research, 2019). The Apple Podcasts service alone features more than 1.2 million podcasts with over 32 million episodes (Lewis, 2020), and in 2018, there were 50 billion podcast downloads (Locker, 2018). Based on these studies from the United States, this communication platform appears to be an increasingly popular medium for communication.
Podcasting may also be a viable instrument for disseminating educational information to both adult and youth audiences as 74% of survey respondents said they listened to podcasts "to learn new things" (Edison Research, 2019). Along with the convenience of listening "on the go," podcasts are popular because they can be experienced à la carte by connecting audiences with specific topics.
A salient opportunity and challenge with this platform, and many modern communication channels, are quality control. That is, most anyone can record content and reach an audience to share their ideas and perspectives. When these ideas and perspectives are science-based, the platform reaches new audiences and can have important impacts in society. When the voices elevated through the platform are not science-based, the platform presents challenges of misinformation. Unfortunately, there is very little quality control on the information disseminated to the masses via webenabled platforms, and people at all ages are vulnerable to receive misinformation rather than reliable, science-based information.
As such, universities and other conservation organizations have a critical role in developing a strong presence in podcasting and other online learning resources to provide reliable, science-based information to students and stakeholders interested biological conservation.
Although the traditional forms of in-person educational program delivery will continue to play an important role in the classroom and in public outreach, podcasts are poised to be one of the most effective forms of non-traditional education because information can be effectively distributed to global audiences without the need for in-person contact. Podcasts have a similar niche to webpages in that you only must build it once and can reach anyone, anywhere as long as they can connect to the internet. Podcasts will not supplant other forms of information delivery, but represent another tool to augment those other forms, and may reach new audiences not engaged by traditional forms of face-to-face information delivery (Hendrickson et al. 2010;Zobrist & Rozance, 2015). Also, they may bridge the gap for science delivery to audiences that do not have access to more formal delivery forms such as attending college.

| DEER UNIVER S IT Y P OD C A S T A S A C A S E S TUDY
We provide an example using the podcast Deer University (https:// deeru niver sity.libsyn.com/) to demonstrate the potential of this emerging educational platform to reach audiences on conservation issues. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are one of the most economically and ecologically important wildlife species in North America. In 2016, 8.1 million hunters spent 115 million days hunting deer, more than any other game species (USFWS, 2016). Deer hunters are a passionate group and are constantly seeking advice from natural resource professionals to improve deer habitat, deer numbers, and deer quality on their property. This provides a great opportunity to disseminate deer biology and management information that is research-based, and not biased by product promotion.
Moreover, private landowners, at least in some parts of the United States, are responsible for a large portion of natural lands and thus provide a critical role in biological conservation. Those same landowners often have a game species interests and often make habitat management decision based on those interests. Thus, focusing messaging on a species like deer that have a wide interest potentially can serve as a conduit to promote more holistic conservation practices on the landscape.
The Deer University podcast was launched in May of 2017 with the goal of providing answers to the questions most often asked by deer hunters and managers. The Deer University podcast compliments more traditional forms of public outreach by teaching concepts that are regularly featured during in-person events, outreach publications, popular magazine articles, and email questions. The motto of the podcast was to take research-based information and distill it in a way the layperson can understand and apply it. The F I G U R E 1 Global google trends data for the term podcast show a steadily increasing relative interest over the last decade (data-autogenerated for the term "podcast" in google trends at https:// trends.google.com/trend s/). Google trends estimate the adjusted proportion of search volume for a particular term (i.e., relative interest) which can provide a useful indicator of changes in behavior or interest in topics over time based on searches for the term in the google search engine

Relative Interest in Podcasts
podcast also provides a venue to discuss current issues that are often misunderstood by the general public, and in particular, deer hunters. Podcast episodes related to issues like Chronic Wasting Disease, the effectiveness of culling to improve antlers and genetics, supplemental feeding, habitat management, and USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Programs, provide science-based accurate information not easily found in hunting magazines, forums, and websites. Moreover, the podcast regularly featured topics related to fostering biodiversity and enhancing ecosystem services, albeit with a deer-centric spin.
Since launching the Deer University podcast in May 2017, the response has been overwhelmingly positive with content downloaded >265,000 times. The podcast has been downloaded in every US state, and in 25 countries-demonstrating the reach of this educational delivery method ( Figure 2). Currently, there are 40 episodes with an average of 5,407 (range 2,510-15,920) downloads per episode. The feedback from listeners indicates that they like the podcast because it is based objectively on science and is not used for marketing products, as is commonplace in other information delivery forums particularly as they relate to this species.

| Developing a podcast
Developing a podcast is relatively easy and inexpensive. Most of the audio editing and mixing software is available free online (e.g., Audacity for PC and Mac, GarageBand for Mac), but more powerful software is available for purchase. A quality microphone to record audio is very important and will likely be the largest expenditure (assuming you already have a computer). Good microphones can be purchased for less than $200 US dollars. Portable recording devices can also be used if a computer is not available or convenient to use (e.g., recording a podcast in the field). Podcasters can also use free online programs such as Zoom and Skype to record both audio and video of conversations to be used for a podcast. The process of podcasting is relatively easy (Figure 3). Once the audio has been recorded, the next step is to edit any distracting noises, or possibly edit the episode to meet a time constraint, and then add any pre-recorded introductions or outgoing messaging (e.g., audacity, garageband, iMovie). The completed audio file is then uploaded along with the F I G U R E 2 Map of the lower 48 US states showing the most common states the Deer University podcast is downloaded. The map was produced by the podcast hosting software libsyn (https://libsyn.com/). Numbers represent the percentage of total US downloads

F I G U R E 3
Steps for recording a podcast to disseminate educational material "show notes" that describes the content of an episode to a podcast platform (e.g., iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Libsyn, Podbean, etc.) where the episode is available for download. Some platforms are better than others in terms of linking episodes to multiple platforms, so be sure to check on this capability.
Platforms track download metrics differently. A platform that tracks download numbers as well as spatial information, download devices, etc., can be very useful when quantifying the reach and potential impacts of the podcast. Most platforms require a monthly fee to host a podcast and store the episodes. The monthly fee is related to the number of episodes you upload and storage you require. A couple of additional recommendations are (a) be sure to brand and market your podcast. As mentioned previously, there are greater than 1 million podcasts available to listeners so be sure the title of your podcast generally conveys the content to attract your target audience. (b) Be prepared to market your podcast with social media (see https://www.faceb ook.com/msu.deerl ab/ and https://www. faceb ook.com/uf.deerl ab/ for examples). Listeners can certainly find your podcast by actively searching for content, but you can greatly accelerate the growth of your podcast by advertising episodes via social media. (c) Relax and record a conversation. You do not need a detailed outline or a transcript, rather, prepare to discuss the meaningful topics and let the conversation meander just as it would if you were having the conversation with a colleague over lunch. This format makes the content much more accessible to people that are not in your field of science and listeners of Deer University commonly send comments to this effect. One other approach we are taking is to link multiple podcast labels together in a network. We have linked Deer University with Fire University (https://fireu niver sity.libsyn.com/), Habitat University (https://habit atuni versi ty.libsyn.com/), and Pond University (https://pondu niver sity.libsyn.com/) into a single umbrella network called Natural Resource University (https://natur alres ource suniv ersity.libsyn.com/). The idea being that the network can create synergy between podcasts and associated social media platforms to leverage the following of each individual podcast to more effectively target information to relevant constituents of others. This collaborative approach is particularly effective at rapidly building a following upon launch of a new podcast. We tested this idea with the Natural Resources University network and found that each episode garnered more than twice as many downloads when combined into the network than the same episode released individually through the respective podcasts platform individually.

| Podcasting for public outreach
In the United States, the Cooperative Extension Service at land grant universities is a product of the Smith-Lever Act of 1914. The goal the Extension Service is taking research-based information from universities and presenting the information in a way to inform citizens about issues of interest. This same goal is accomplished in other countries but is called other terms such as public outreach and stakeholders knowledge sharing. Broad areas of this public outreach programming include, but are not limited to, agriculture, range and forest management, fish and wildlife management, health and wellbeing, and youth education. Historically, teaching events for public outreach professionals have included field days, workshops, and seminars, but now include websites, blogs, videos, social media, and podcasting. Podcasts provide an opportunity to reach an audience at scales that would never be possible with traditional face-to-face teaching events. Another major advantage of podcasts over that of other more traditional forms of public outreach is that they can be recorded quickly to rapidly respond to dramatic events such as natural disasters, disease outbreaks, or changes in legislation. Although podcasting is in its infancy within public outreach programming, this is certainly an emerging education tool that will only grow in popularity over time.

| Podcasting in the classroom
While podcasting is widely used as a tool to enhance pedagogical approaches in the classroom (Beamish & Brown, 2008;Flanagan & Calandra, 2005;Frydenberg, 2006;Lazzari, 2007), it is not widely used in ecology and evolutionary biology classrooms. Given that podcasts are digital, highly versatile in terms of length and content, and are offered asynchronously, they provide a viable tool to safely deliver content to students in the wake of the pandemic and may be robust to changes in society over time. Lashley and McCleery (2020) suggested podcasting could be used to mix up content in a flipped classroom format, provide an opportunity to interview experts on a given topic, and even provide an opportunity for students to engage in the process of developing and producing content. They suggested short 5-15-min podcast episodes could be an effective length to engage students attention, provide an opportunity to review the content, and because it is digital, could be easily shared between instructors covering similar topics to increase the availability and diversity of content. Also, we included one podcast in Table 1, How ecology works, which is structured according to the recommendations in Lashley and McCleery (2020) which includes ~15-min episodes on a wide range of ecology topics designed specifically to be used in ecological college courses. We believe incorporating podcasts, whether recorded by the instructor or from a freely available repository such as How ecology works, into the classroom could be a good way to enhance the online learning experience.

| Finding relevant podcasts
Finding relevant podcasts to target your specific needs can be a challenge. In an effort to facilitate the locating of relevant podcasts, we compiled a list of science-relevant podcast labels (Table 1). We compiled this list by asking the ecology and evolution community through each author's social media networks and through a post on ecology, a listserv hosted by the Ecological Society of America, to respond with their favorite, or their own, podcast that covered an TA B L E 1 Science-related podcasts suggested by Ecologists and Evolutionary biologists replying to a post on Ecolog (a list serve hosted by the Ecological Society of America) and on our social media pages a Ocean Science Radio Naomi Frances Farabaugh, Andrew Kornblatt Highlights the latest ocean science stories.

Ologies Allie Ward
Intentionally focuses on a broad array of topics but mostly within STEM disciplines.
Outside/In New Hampshire Public Radio Covers a broad spectrum of environmental issues targeting a general audience.
Overheard National Geographic Broadly explores nature across disciplines and presented for a general audience.

Palaeocast
Explores the fossil record and the evolution of life on earth.

Planted: Finding your roots in STEM Careers
The Morton Arboretum Interviews professionals that work with plants with the intent to introduce students and early career scientists to the job opportunities in the field. The affiliation was listed when an organization was hosting the podcast and otherwise the host and cohosts. It was left blank in the case that neither information was readily apparent on the podcast website. c The subject area was paraphrased based on information from the "about" section on the website, from the person who submitted the label, or from a brief sampling of the available episodes and thus, may not fully accurately describe the contents of the podcast.

TA B L E 1 (Continued)
ecology or evolutionary biology-related subject area. We received responses from 128 individuals with more than 70 unique podcast suggestions. This list is not exhaustive and was not intended to exclude or endorse any particular label, but instead, we hope that it provides a good starting point for finding podcasts relevant to individual needs based on recommendations from our community.
We recognize that this list by nature of the way we compiled it is strongly biased to North America and there are likely many sciencebased podcasts available related to this topic in languages other than English and in other parts of the globe.

| PANDEMIC P OD C A S TING
The COVID-19 pandemic has, hopefully only temporarily, eliminated or modified traditional classroom teaching at universities (Crawford et al., 2020). These changes have had an immediate and dramatic impact on ecology and evolution-related disciplines (Corlett et al., 2020) and may lead to a long-term shift on the reliance of remotely delivered communications . Podcasting is an underutilized tool that can be used to directly and safely to teach students during the pandemic, and this technology can additionally be used to educate a far greater number of people in broader audiences such as those targeted through public outreach programming. Because podcasts can be recorded and delivered to broad audiences remotely with technologies already available, we believe this platform provides a useful tool in the pedagogical platform for science education.

| CLOS ING REMARK S
Podcasting is an emerging tool with a broad flexibility to deliver science-based information asynchronously in the online classroom or in online outreach programming. This platform provides an additional opportunity for scientist to convey science-based information directly from scientist to a broad range of end users globally in near real time. Because this technology is being widely adopted across demographics, using this tool for online learning in ecology and evolution is likely to improve communication skills in our disciplines in a safe and inclusive manner. Thus, we encourage ecologist and evolutionary biologists to consider adopting podcasting as part of their programs. Writing-original draft (equal); Writing-review & editing (equal).

E TH I C A L A PPROVA L
No use of animal or human subjects in this study.

DATA AVA I L A B I L I T Y S TAT E M E N T
Data used to create graphs are archived at the given web address and freely available for download. All data collected to produce the