The purpose of this study was to investigate student perceptions of inquiry‐based pedagogy within the context of learning about environmental concepts and issues. The study was descriptive in nature and employed a single group, pretest‐posttest design, surveying 367 students. The chi‐square analysis indicated that 17 of the 29 survey items were answered in a statistically different manner. This suggests that students perceived the environmental inquiry‐based experiences to be nontraditional in the approach to teaching and assessment and to emphasize scientific investigations. Students, however, did not perceive science learning to be different from that of past science experiences. Implications to science instruction and teacher professional development are discussed.
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