Assessing impacts of locally designed environmental education projects on students’ environmental attitudes, awareness, and intention to act

Abstract

This study investigates whether consistent effects on students' environmental attitudes, awareness, and behavioral intentions could be discerned in an initiative that supports environmental education (EE) designed at the classroom level. Students of grades four, five, and seven participated in an assessment at the beginning and end of the school year. Quantitative assessment questions were adapted from the Children's Environmental Perception Scale. Factor analysis identified three factors related to intentions for environmental learning and behavior, environmental appreciation, and awareness of the potential to impact nature. Qualitative items assessed students' perception of their EE experience. Over one school year, fourth-and fifth-grade EE students gained awareness of the potential to impact nature, but EE students did not exhibit changes to environmental appreciation or intentions for environmental learning and behavior. With increasing years of EE experience, students demonstrated slight increases in environmental appreciation and intentions for environmental learning and behavior. Students' recollection of in-class discussions primarily related to cognitive and psychomotor domains, with minimal mention of social or affective themes. Student perspectives highlighted individuals' unique interests, which may not be fostered when all students conduct the same activity. Over a third of all students most enjoyed the EE experience for the chance to be outside, and only five percent most enjoyed gaining environmental knowledge.

A validity and reliability study of the Attitudes toward Sustainable Development scale

“…A few of the most frequently applied scales include the Children's Environmental Attitudes and Knowledge Scale (Leeming, Dwyer, and Bracken 1995) and the revised NEP scale (Dunlap and van Liere 1978;Dunlap et al 2000). Other tools considered environmental attitudes (Milfont and Duckitt 2010) and students' environmental attitudes, awareness, and intention to act (Bergman 2015). Most of the tools were developed in an educational setting, primarily for elementary or secondary schools (Dijkstra and Goedhart 2012;Karpudewan, Roth, and Chandrakesan 2015;Olsson, Gericke, and Chang Rundgren 2015;Powell et al 2011) However, there are few studies about the environmental attitudes and knowledge of college students (Biasutti 2015;Shephard et al 2011).…”

The Influence of Emotional Environmental Pictures on Behavior Intentions: The Evidence of Neuroscience Technology

“…This result implies that higher pressure and higher attention could induce the participants' environmental intention to act. Although a previous study investigated the issues of environmental affect and action [2], the current study provides new evidence from neuroscience to illustrate the relationship between environmental affect and environmental intention to act.…”

“…The goal of environmental education has been identified as improving the health of the world's ecosystems [1]. To teach people to achieve that goal, environmental education practitioners have designed a number of curriculum and teaching strategies to improve general environmental knowledge, attitudes and/or behaviors [2]. As with other subjects, one of the most important components of a teaching strategy for environmental education is emotion [3,4].…”

Ecological Worldview among Urban Design Professionals

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