Fostering "Connectedness to Nature" through Digital Photo Journaling: A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Environmental Education Curriculum for Upper Elementary Students

Abstract

In Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, Richard Louv (2005) described a shift in our relationship to the natural world. On average, today’s youth spend 6.5 hours a day with electronic media (Driessnack, 2009; Roberts & Foehr, 2008). While this technology has expanded access to the virtual world, it has also attributed to an ever-widening divide between today’s youth and the natural world (Louv, 2005). The Department of the Interior (DOI) initiative Youth in the Great Outdoors and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) priority Let’s Go Outside: Ensuring the Future of Conservation emphasize a need to foster environmental connectedness in America's youth (Department of the Interior, 2010; U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, 2010a). The purpose of this study was to explore the use of digital photo journaling as an environmental education method for fostering connectedness to nature among upper elementary youth. A digital photo journaling curriculum was developed, piloted, and evaluated in the Prairie Science Class (PSC) at Prairie Wetlands Learning Center (PWLC) in Fergus Falls, MN.