Res Sci Educ (2012) 42:1007–1026 DOI 10.1007/s11165-011-9233-6
Connecting Urban Youth with their Environment: The Impact of an Urban Ecology Course on Student Content Knowledge, Environmental Attitudes and Responsible Behaviors Erin A. Hashimoto-Martell & Katherine L. McNeill & Emily M. Hoffman
Published online: 25 May 2011 # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011
Abstract This study explores the impact of an urban ecology program on participating middle school students’ understanding of science and pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. We gathered pre and post survey data from four classes and found significant gains in scientific knowledge, but no significant changes in student beliefs regarding the environment. We interviewed 12 students to better understand their beliefs. Although student responses showed they had learned discrete content knowledge, they lacked any ecological understanding of the environment and had mixed perceptions of the course’s relevance in their lives. Students reported doing pro-environmental behaviors, but overwhelmingly contributed such actions to influences other than the urban ecology course. Analyses indicated a disconnect between the course, the environment, and the impact on the students’ lives. Consequently, this suggests the importance of recognizing the implications of context, culture, and identity development of urban youth. Perhaps by providing explicit connections and skills in urban environmental programs through engaging students in environmental scientific investigations that stem from their own issues and questions can increase student engagement, motivation, and self-efficacy of environmental issues. Keywords Ecological education . Environmental education . Environmental literacy . Informal science education . Middle school . Urban ecology . Urban youth With the increasing awareness of the effects of human activity on the environment, from environmental health, the strain on nonrenewable resources, and climate change, it is imperative that young people are educated about the state of these problems, how they are progressing, and what people can do to address these issues. If environmental education programs are going to progress with current ways of addressing environmental problems E. A. Hashimoto-Martell (*) : K. L. McNeill Boston College, Lynch School of Education, Campion Hall, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA e-mail:
[email protected] E. M. Hoffman Urban Ecology Institute, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
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and be more effective at eliciting environmentally responsible actions, there needs to be further research into how students are experiencing these programs, whether these environmental education outcomes are being met, and then how the field might improve reaching such outcomes, especially for students living in urban areas. Many environmental education programs specifically target youth in urban areas since they spend most of their time in the built environment, in conjunction with their direct contact with environmental problems that disproportionately affect those in poor and urban communities. In particular, this study explored the impact of an urban ecology field studies program on participating middle school students. This research attempts to describe the scientific learning that occurred, any changes in student awareness and stewardship of the environment, and how they perceived the impact of the course on their understanding of these topics. This will help inform a better understanding of the impact of the field studies program in how it reaches their intended goals with their target student population and provide recommendations in general for other programs with similar aims. Specifically, we are interested in the research questions: What is the impact of the course on science content knowledge, environmental attitudes, and environmentally responsible behaviors? What are the perceptions of urban student participants in a school-based urban ecology studies program of the environment, and how does the program relate to their lives?
Theoretical Framework As mentioned previously, we are interested in supporting students in three goals: content knowledge, environmental attitudes and environmentally responsible behaviors. The field of environmental education emphasizes the general goals of teaching students about science content knowledge, stimulating positive environmental attitudes (such as awareness and appreciation), and encouraging environmentally responsible actions through conducting learning in an outdoor setting. We define science content knowledge in this context to encompass the disciplines of biology, ecology, and environmental earth sciences, which inform the science content of environmental education. The North American Association for Environmental Education standards (2004) are organized into four strands: (1) questioning, analysis, and interpretation skills, (2) knowledge of environmental processes and systems, (3) skills for understanding and addressing environmental issues, and (4) personal and civic responsibility. Environmental attitudes refer to a construct that encompasses students’ conscious awareness about their local or global environment, a realization of their connection to the environment, and a generally positive view towards the environment. Environmentally responsible behaviors are those decisions and actions that a student would make that regard the health, care, and stewardship of the natural environment. Those behaviors can be differentiated between individual choices (such as recycling their own cans) and the action of enacting change through a larger community (such as starting a school-wide recycling program). To frame our research study, we next discuss why these three goals are important and the relationships between these three goals. Furthermore, we describe how these goals may be situated within an urban context and the implications of environmental education in urban settings. Content Knowledge, Environmental Attitudes, and Responsible Behaviors The original field of environmental education emerged from the early 20th century. Often referred to in literature as nature-study, it emphasized study of natural history through
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students’ own experiences through time spent immersed in nature where they developed an appreciation and care for the environment (Meyers 1908; Moseley 1925). This engagement of students with the outdoor environment and study of natural history continues to be a primary principle of environmental education, where fostering a unique sense of place and personal significance of an environment is considered foundational to promoting environmental values and responsible behaviors (Lutts 1985). Outdoor learning experiences have often been included in the school curriculum specifically for students to understand biological and ecological concepts more concretely within the context of natural habitats through modeling the data collection practices of environmental scientists. Such programs have had positive results in students’ science content knowledge and process skills (Lisowski and Disinger 1991). Teaching students about their local environment is an underpinning for environmental awareness and appreciation. When children learned how to identify their own local flora and fauna, Lindermann-Matthies (2005) found it widened their perception and appreciation of those organisms. Here it would seem that an increase in both local knowledge and awareness led to students’ increased appreciation of their environment. With the major outcome of environmental education in general to promote environmentally responsible behaviors, it hopes to stem from individuals’ understanding of environmental science content and an appreciation and awareness of the environment. Within the last 20 years, many environmental education philosophers have situated themselves through the lenses of critical theory and environmental justice. The critical stance of environmental education argues for a societal and cultural change from individualism and exploitation to one of sustainability (Smith and Williams 1999). Calabrese Barton (2008) defines a ‘critical science agency’ of students: where a student develops a strong content understanding of science and utilizes those skills and knowledge to create ‘a more socially just and equitable place with and through science’ (p. 23). Such a stance is easily translated to an environmental education focus as well. Content knowledge, positive environmental attitudes and responsible behaviors have been essential goals of environmental education since its inception and continue to be the defining tenets of most programs. Programs have focused on these three major goals, intertwining them in hopes of laying the foundation for students to make environmentally responsible choices in their lives. Many earlier studies in environmental education focused on these general principles: science content knowledge, environmental awareness, and environmentally responsible behaviors, and were ‘positivist in tone’ looking specifically at students’ changes in those distinct areas (Jenkins and Pell 2006). Many quantitative studies have shown significant student gains in content knowledge through participation in various programs; however, often when trying to measure attitude changes towards the environment the results have been inconclusive, showing negligible changes (Cronin-Jones 2000; League 1997; Martin 2003; Milton et al. 1995). Trying to understand the connection or disconnection between the major tenets of environmental education has spawned many theories with no singular explanation (Kollmuss and Agyeman 2002). Many argue that to understand people’s actions, it is much more complex, involving an individual’s negotiations with personal emotions and identity, which goes beyond ‘knowledge-attitude-behavior relationships’ (Hart 2007). There is often the assumption that an increased awareness and understanding of environmental knowledge would correlate with increased environmentally responsible actions, however the effectual translation of such ideas need to be more thoroughly examined. It is important to investigate the means from which content knowledge and environmental awareness is able to translate to action. Often a disconnection can exist
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between these goals of environmental education. In a study on the effect of content knowledge on socioscientific argumentation, Sadler and Donnelly (2006) found no evidence of students using their content background in discussing the socioscientific issue of genetic engineering, but in fact more readily referenced ideas from science fiction and the media. With the plethora of media outlets on environmental issues, from television commercials to cartoon movies, it is increasingly a significant source of information for many students. It will be important to distinguish between the impact of an environmental education program and that of popular media in the environmental decisions and actions of students, to see how the immersion in an outdoor learning setting and increased scientific content knowledge may affect students’ decisions. Hungerford and Volk (1990) argue that the traditional assumption that awareness leads to behavior was ineffective, and that it is integral to provide students with opportunities to develop the skills and knowledge to promote environmentally responsible actions. The translation is neither effortless nor automatic, but must be explicitly taught for students to have the ability and competence to enact environmentally responsible actions. Sobel (1996) states that there are appropriate developmental ages for particular goals of environmental education, that a young child must first have a basic empathy for the natural environment, followed by a period of exploration and immersion, which sets the foundation for action and responsibility as an adolescent. If the major final outcome of environmental education is to engage students to make environmentally responsible decisions at minimum, to advocating action to protect the health of the environment, then it is crucial to understand the underlying mechanisms, which create such motivation within the individual. We see each of these three goals as important, but we also want to further explore the relationship between the three with a particular interest in how to best support students in environmentally responsible behaviors. Urban Youth In a review of urban science education, Calabrese Barton (2007) discusses the implications of urban science looking at the achievement gap as a function of sociocultural status and resources, and the tensions within the process of learning science between the student, science, and their learning environment. In particular, Calabrese Barton looks at how the interaction and mediation between the cultures of the students, teachers, schools, and communities can act as possible barriers or bridges to students’ science learning. When students were engaged in science as ‘legitimate participants’ and their identities and cultures were inclusive of what they understood as ‘science’ they were better able to see themselves as connected and engaged in science. As such, Calabrese Barton raises the question of ‘how the science education community might reshape learning so that it is viewed as a multidirectional process/product, framed not only by content goals but also by identities, purposes and goals, and context, and why this is particularly important in urban settings’ (p. 341). This intersects the field of environmental education and urban youth, which seeks to increase youth’s environmental science content and personal connection to the environment. If urban youth can see the topic of environmental education as inclusive of their identities and culture, then they will more likely be able to connect with issues and ideas set forth by environmental education programs. As such, it is important to understand urban students’ perceptions of their environment and the impact of environmental education programs. Haluza-Delay (2001) found that when urban high school students went on a 12-day wilderness trip, their concern for their own environment declined as they cemented the ideas of ‘nature’ as something that was absent from their local environment. Such contrary findings to the goals of environmental
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education provoke an increased need to research how environmental education effectively meets the needs of urban youth. In contrast, a study of the impact of the Chicago River Project with 5th grade classes at a Chicago elementary school showed increases in student content knowledge, interest in science, and self-efficacy (Bouillion and Gomez 2001). Understanding urban students’ experiences in an environmental education program will help provide specific insights into programs that target urban youth and how to promote environmentally responsible actions. Today’s globalized, consumer-based, and individualistic society has heavily impacted the environment, and disproportionately affects those in poor or urban communities (Brulle and Pellow 2006). Environmental education has been additionally informed by an ‘ecojustice’ stance, centrally concerned with racial and economic oppression in relation to the environment (Bowers 2001). We must consider how the field of environmental education may evolve to encompass equity within the goal of environmentally responsible action. Gruenewald’s (2003) ‘critical pedagogy of place’ calls for people to recover and live consciously and well in their local environment while transforming their thinking that exploited the environment and certain groups of people. Environmental education must constantly challenge the way we are living and our social and ecological quality of life. For teachers to practice critical place-based pedagogy, they must create opportunities for children to connect to the natural world. How this translates comprehensively to schools in urban contexts is a challenge when the built environment has so significantly consumed the natural world and social issues predominate ecological ones. Urban ecology education makes the movement to immersing students into an awareness and study of the natural world that is present within the urban environment, while considering the myriad of urban factors that are impacting the ecosystem in which they live. It is important to understand how environmental education can be most effective at reaching its goals and consider how environmental education may be integrated with students’ experiences. In contrast, it is also important to understand the barriers to increasing environmentally responsible actions in students. By investigating the perceptions of the students through an environmental education program, we can gain insight into why and where they envision themselves as part of their environment and what role they play. Perhaps through their views we can better understand the impact and obstacles to an effective program, while gaining insight into environmental education for urban youth.
Instructional Context This exploratory study took place in a public middle school consisting of approximately 600 students in a large urban school district in the Northeast United States. The student population is 65% Hispanic, 20% White, 12% Black, 3% Asian and 1% Other. Sixty-five percent of the students have a first language that is not English. Twenty percent of the student population is designated special education. Ninety-four percent of the school is designated low-income, receiving free or reduced lunch. The school is set on the edge of a harbor used for both industrial and recreational purposes. We studied a course on urban ecology, which focused on teaching the local ecology of the harbor. It was a semester-long course that random students were assigned to during their mandatory extended-day afternoon elective block. The 75-min block met twice a week for the duration of the semester. There were many tensions that arose due to the elective nature of the course and because students were randomly assigned to it regardless of personal interest. As such, there was little student accountability for the course because it was not
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required for passing to the next grade-level. Because the course was during the afternoon block, if students were on sports teams they often were pulled out for their sports events and even school dances were scheduled during the class time. The class sizes were approximately 15 students. Students were added to and removed from the class roster throughout the semester as scheduling and behavior issues arose, so although not reflected in the pre-post data (only students who had both pre- and post- data were analyzed), it was a consistent problem with the class. The curriculum and instructor were provided support through a local nonprofit organization whose goal is to create a healthy urban ecosystem through research, education, and community action. The curriculum aimed to expose and teach students about their local urban ecosystem through lessons that involved outdoor investigations, indoor experiments, and field trips. The course begins with an introduction to what urban ecology is (the study of ecology in an urban environment) and has students map out their schoolyard. Then, they have numerous lessons on the flora and fauna that can be found in their schoolyard and in the harbor that their school sits adjacent to, including learning about the fish species, bird species, and using microscopes to look for microorganisms from water samples. Students also learned about human impact on the harbor, using models to demonstrate effects of pollution on the health of the harbor ecosystem. Many of the classes dedicated part of the time spent outdoors to engage the students with their local environment. They also took local field trips within the city to study the marshland and local estuary. At the end of the course students worked in pairs to investigate their own question that related to the topics they had learned about.
Methods Participants Participants in this study included the students enrolled in the urban ecology course during the spring semester of 2009. The data were gathered from all four classes, which consisted of two sixth grade classes and two seventh grade classes. Although the semester began with 60 students enrolled across the four clases, due to the high rate of students moving out of the course or into it mid-semester, only students who completed both the pre and post measures were included in the analysis. Students (n=39) were given a pre and post survey that consisted of two parts: multiple-choice questions based on the academic content of the curriculum, and a Likert scale environmental survey on environmental beliefs. Based on students’ pre-survey results, a purposive sample of 12 students (three students from each class) was selected to provide a wide range of student perspectives in the interviews. The 12 students were selected based on the results of the environmental belief scale and grade-level. Six sixth-graders and six seventh-graders were selected; of the six, two were selected that exhibited lower environmental beliefs, two middle, and two high. We sought to also have equal gender distribution, but due to the disproportionate number of females in the seventh-grade classes, we had more seventh-grade females (n=8) than males (n=4) in our interview sample. Data Measures The pre and post survey consisted of (a) ten multiple-choice content questions and (b) 15 environmental belief statements. The content questions were based on the curriculum that was being used in the Urban Ecology courses. The test was developed by the authors and
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checked by a program director of the Urban Ecology middle school programs and the teacher of the classes to make sure the questions were appropriate to what the students were learning. The questions sought to measure any changes in content knowledge of the students as a result of participation in the course. Focusing specifically on course curriculum, the questions included topics such as the general definition of ecology (What is an ecosystem? What is urban ecology?), characteristics and use of the harbor (What is a harbor useful for? At what depth is the water coldest in the harbor? What is salinity?), and animal adaptations. The test was piloted with the same curriculum and teacher in the prior semester, and the content section had a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.78. The environmental belief statements had the students use a Likert-type scale to identify the level to which they agreed or disagreed with a given statement. The statements ranged in topics about their awareness of nature in their environment, their sense of agency, recycling practices, and attitudes towards the environment. These statements were used to gain an overall sense of environmental beliefs, since they were composed of their current ideas and actions related to environmental awareness. In the pilot of the survey, the belief scale had a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.82. (See Appendix A for content and belief item samples.) The entire survey was purposely designed to be short, having only 10 items to measure content and 15 items to measure beliefs. Given the nature of the course, as a mandated enrichment class that had no impact on grade promotion or such, many of the middle school students were resistant to work that resembled more typical academic schoolwork, such as a multiple choice test. A short test would increase the chances that students would take the test through completion so that we would have more complete data for analyses. Still, three students did not complete the survey, stopping only after the first ten content items. Although having more items would have been more comprehensive, it would not have necessarily provided more complete data, and was a trade-off we chose to make. Twelve students were purposively selected to participate in a follow-up interview near the end of their semester coursework. The interview questions aimed to get more detailed information regarding the statements of the belief measure in addition to general student perspectives on the impact of the Urban Ecology course. An interview protocol was used and each interview was audio recorded and transcribed (See Appendix B for interview protocol). Each interview lasted between 20 and 40 min. Data Analysis Interview data were first read for content to identify emergent themes and tentative explanations while being informed by our conceptual framework. We examined the subthemes for patterns, relationships, contradictions and omissions in the data. Interviews were coded and a brief description of the coding schemes can be found in Table 1. The codes emerged from the analysis of the interview data, coming from identified themes and subthemes. Codes are given for the 7 out of 14 questions that aligned with the research questions. Most of the questions allowed for multiple coding options, with the exception of two. Multiple codes means that if a student included multiple ideas in their responses, we coded separately each of those ideas. For example, the first question in the coding scheme focuses on what students learned in the course; so for each response that a student gave, if they mentioned both life science and physical science concepts, then we coded both. The two questions that only allowed for singular coding aimed to get at the underlying function of the answers in a potentially hierarchical dimension, in that each code was a stronger response than the previous code. For example, the question, Has the class changed the way you think about the environment? had codes that built upon each one. If the student had
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Table 1 Coding schemes for student interview questions Interview question
Student response codes
What do you think you have learned or gained from the course?
1) Life Science, 2) Physical Science, 3) Human, 4) Ecological Understanding, and 5) Other responses *Multiple codes acceptable
Has anything about the course been relevant to your daily life?
1) Future Goals, 2) Increased Awareness, 3) Stewardship, and 4) No
Has the class changed the way you think about the environment?
*Multiple codes acceptable 1) No, 2) Yes, 3) Environmental Awareness, and 4) Environmental Stewardship *Singular code only
Who is responsible for taking care of the environment?
1) Themselves, 2) Local Group, 3) Government, and 4) Everyone *Singular code only
What environmental problems do we face?
1) Global Warming, 2) Violence, 3) Pollution, 4) Animal Extinction, 5) Wasting Resources, 6) None
Do you do anything that is “environmentally friendly” or “green”?
*Multiple codes acceptable 1) No, 2) Litter, 3) Recycle, 4) Conservation, and 5) Protection *Multiple codes acceptable
What influenced students’ pro-environmental behaviors?
1) Course, 2) School, 3) Television, and 4) Home *Multiple codes acceptable
given an answer related to environmental awareness, it would also encompass the yes code, or an answer related to environmental stewardship would encompass the environmental awareness and yes codes as well. This is similar reasoning for the other singularly coded question, Who is responsible for taking care of the environment? since there could be potential overlap across the answers given and the coding options, narrowing it to one of the codes would get at the underlying “who” that the student pointed at for having the responsibility. For example, the code everyone would encompass all the other codes, so instead is distinguished separately from other distinct groups. Two of the authors independently coded three (25%) randomly selected interview transcripts. Inter-rater reliability was calculated by percent agreement. The overall percent agreement was 83.1% and all of the disagreements were resolved through discussion.
Results The results section focuses on the two research questions: (1) What is the impact of the course on science content knowledge, environmental attitudes, and environmentally responsible behaviors? and (2) What are the perceptions of urban student participants in a school-based urban ecology studies program of the environment and how does the program relate to their lives? We gathered pre and post survey data to measure any quantitative changes that may have occurred as a result of participation in the urban ecology course. We then gathered qualitative interview data to understand participants’ own perceptions about how the course may have affected their content understanding, attitudes, and stewardship of the environment and how they saw the course in relation to their own lives and experiences.
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Content Knowledge Students were given a ten-question, multiple-choice content assessment based on the curriculum of the urban ecology course curriculum. Table 2 shows that students (n=39) obtained a significant gain in scientific learning by the end of their urban ecology course (p
