Browsing by Subject "environmental education"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Best Practices for Field Days: A Program Planning Guidebook for Organizers, Presenters, Teachers and Volunteers
    (Regents of the University of Minnesota, University of Minnesota Extension, 2005) Blair, Robert B.; Carlson, Stephan P.; Bilotta, John B.; Montgomery, Kent L.; Ostlie, Karen M.; Prax, Valerie J.; Rager, Amy R.B.; Meyer, Nathan J.
    Field days are one approach to environmental education programming that provide effective means of bridging classroom learning with real-world issues or problems. Field Days are typically multi-station field trip events in which students and teachers rotate through multiple presentations on environmental topics. They can happen indoors or outdoors for audiences of tens to thousands of students. Following a review of relevant literature, program surveys, and feedback from University of Minnesota Extension Educators, a series of seven recommendations were developed for planning and delivering effective Environmental Field Day programs. This guidebook translates these recommendations into implications for the design and delivery of effective events, and provides resources to help event organizers, presenters and participant teachers effectively address these implications.
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    Building Environmental Youth Leadership: A High-school Service-learning Curriculum
    (University of Minnesota Extension, Regents of the University of Minnesota, 2006) Meyer, Nathan, J.; Meyer, Rebecca, L.
    The Building Environmental Youth Leadership Team curriculum was made possible, in part, through funding from Minnesota's Lake Superior Coastal Program. The guide first defines and details key components of the service learning process. Subsequent lesson plans describe how to help groups of high-school-aged youth develop teamwork and a service mission, logistical plans, and actions to accomplish their service mission. These lessons were developed and piloted by Extension educators over the course of two years working in collaboration with youth and staff from the Northern Pines Girl Scout Council and Duluth ISD 709.
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    Case Study: Urban Teachers’ Perspective on Environmental Education in North Macedonia
    (2023-05) Zafirovska, Srna
    This thesis examines teachers’ experiences in one primary school in North Macedonia.The purpose is to understand how Macedonian teachers view environmental education and what challenges they face in its implementation. The data is gathered through qualitative interviews. The data produces three assertions; a) teachers recognize the need for environmental education as environmental awareness seems to be very low among the general public; b) the teachers stress the importance of an early start and upbringing in acquiring environmental awareness; c) insufficient resources limit the realization of environmental education. Improvement recommendations include: increasing parental involvement through interactive workshops, investing in reusable gloves for trash pickup events, and investing in transportation for more contextual learning. This thesis concludes by summarizing the findings and emphasizing the suggestions for improvement.
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    Drawing knowledge from the experience: Students' understandings of ecosystems before and after a short field experience
    (2019-12) Kamesch, Hallie
    Human activities are increasingly and profoundly altering many of the processes and subsystems that make up the Earth System, upon which we depend for life. In order to enable citizens to make responsible environmental decisions, it is necessary to empower them with the knowledge and skills necessary to understand the connections between themselves and the ecological processes and systems with which they interact. A first step toward thinking globally about the Earth system is thinking locally about familiar ecosystems; students need opportunities to engage with ecosystems in ways that help them develop sophisticated understandings of ecosystems as complex systems of interacting abiotic and biotic components. The purpose of this mixed-methods study is to illuminate the phenomenon of students’ understandings of ecosystems and how those understandings changed after a short field study. Participants were 27 fifth-grade students from three schools visiting a local Ecological Research Station during a school field-trip. Data consisted of students’ drawings and written descriptions of ecosystems elicited through a drawing task implemented immediately before and after a field experience. Research has demonstrated that both long-term field experiences and learning units that provide students with explicit frameworks for how to think about ecosystems positively influence student knowledge about ecosystems (eg. Assaraf & Orion, 2010; Hmelo-Silver, Marathe, & Liu, 2007; Kenyan, Assaraf, & Goldman 2014). This study investigates the influence of a short-term (90-minute) out-of-classroom field experience that does not explicitly teach how to think about an ecosystem, but instead engages students in the scientific practices of gathering data and making data-based statements (observations/comparisons). Results of quantitative and qualitative analyses illustrate the ways students’ understandings of ecosystems changed. This study provides information about the type and duration of experiences that can cultivate students’ development of increasingly sophisticated understandings of ecosystems and thus lay the foundation for future learning.
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    E-Tips for Environmental Educators
    (St. Paul, MN: University of Minnesota Extension Service, 2009) Meyer, Nate; Carlson, Stephan
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    Effects of Nature-Based Learning on Elementary Students’ Sustained Attention: An Exploratory Study
    (2024-05) Schumacher, Moss
    Nature-based learning (NBL) is a growing approach to education, and is backed by decades of research showing that when people spend time outside, they experience benefits to their physical and mental health, relationships, academic performance, and beyond. As this style of education gains traction, it is important to explore the impact it has on students. The present study looked at the impact of NBL on the sustained attention of 16 fifth grade students by evaluating their sustained attention ability directly before and after a NBL lesson and an indoor control lesson. Results showed that after students experienced a NBL lesson, they responded significantly faster on a sustained attention measure, as compared to the pre-lesson results and the indoor control lesson results. Implications of this research and further research recommendations are provided.
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    Integration of Environmental Issues in a Physics Course: 'Physics by Inquiry' High School Teachers' Integration Models and Challenges
    (2017-02) Kimori, David
    As we approach the second quarter of the twenty-first century, one may predict that the environment will be among the dominant themes in the political and educational discourse. Over the past three decades, particular perspectives regarding the environment have begun to emerge: (i) realization by human beings that we not only live on earth and use its resources at an increasingly high rate but we also actually belong to the earth and the total ecology of all living systems, (ii) there are strong interactions among different components of the large and complex systems that make up our environment, and (iii) the rising human population and its impact on the environment is a great concern (Hughes & Mason, 2014). Studies have revealed that although the students do not have a deep understanding of environmental issues and lack environmental awareness and attitudes necessary for protecting the environment, they have great concern for the environment (Chapman & Sharma, 2001; Fien, Yencken, & Sykes, 2002). However, addressing environmental issues in the classroom and other disciplines has never been an easy job for teachers (Pennock & Bardwell, 1994; Edelson, 2007). Using multiple case studies, this study investigated how three purposefully selected physics teachers teaching a ‘Physics by Inquiry’ course integrated environmental topics and issues in their classroom. Particularly this study looked at what integration models and practices the three physics teachers employed in integrating environmental topics and issues in their classroom and what challenges the teachers faced while integrating environmental topics in their classrooms. Data collection methods including field notes taken from observations, teachers’ interviews and a collection of artifacts and documents were used. The data were coded analyzed and organized into codes and categories guided by Fogarty (1991) models of curriculum integration and Ham and Sewing (1988) four categories of barriers to environmental education. Findings of this study indicate that teachers acknowledge the importance of teaching environmental issues in their classrooms but continue to struggle with conceptual, educational, logistical and attitudinal barriers to successful integration of environmental topics in physics.