Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 17 of 17
Full-Text Articles in Education
Citizen Science As Experiential Education In The Modern Classroom, Peter Swan
Citizen Science As Experiential Education In The Modern Classroom, Peter Swan
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
Secondary education has grown increasingly dependent on delivering instruction and materials via mobile devices and computers in the 21st century. Research has long shown the effectiveness of “student-centered”, experiential and “place based” learning in the classroom. Citizen science initiatives have been demonstrated to be meaningful ways to teach the nature - and practice - of scientific inquiry. This paper explores the current trends in secondary science education in light of recent societal transformations and investigates the body of literature regarding environmental, outdoor and experiential education. The project then proposes a solution to integrate experiential, citizen science into a modern, digital …
The Impact Of Climate Change Education In An Outdoor Classroom On Middle School Students' Attitudes And Understandings Towards Climate Change, Kelly Peterson
The Impact Of Climate Change Education In An Outdoor Classroom On Middle School Students' Attitudes And Understandings Towards Climate Change, Kelly Peterson
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
This capstone paper and project seek to answer the question: how does learning about climate change in an outdoor classroom impact middle schoolers’ attitudes and understandings toward climate change? The most effective methods to teaching climate change include a place-based, multidisciplinary approach with high levels of inquiry and engagement. When students learn outdoors, they also engage in place-based learning that is highly inquiry based. Combining climate change education with outdoor education is an effective way to approach climate change education. Through use of the Learning Cycle and Understanding by Design, a unit on ecosystem dynamics, biodiversity, and ecosystem services was …
Using An Ecojustice Education Framework To Address Conservation In The Upstate, Rebecca Bolich-Wade
Using An Ecojustice Education Framework To Address Conservation In The Upstate, Rebecca Bolich-Wade
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
In an era of complex and overlapping issues, it is critical to evaluate the effectiveness of alternative interdisciplinary methodology within the fields of justice and environmental conservation. One such method is encapsulated in an ecojustice education framework. This capstone project sought to analyze the effectiveness of an ecojustice education framework to address conservation in the Upstate of South Carolina. In the process of this study’s literature review, it is evident that isolating social justice from environmental conservation is ineffective and unresponsive to the needs that historically underserved communities today face in terms of the mitigation of environmental burdens and enhancement …
Growing Environmentally Literate Youth, Kimberly Harding
Growing Environmentally Literate Youth, Kimberly Harding
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
Research has demonstrated that the importance of producing environmentally literate youth is becoming a priority around the world Producing environmentally literate youth through E-STEM Garden-based learning practices will not only allow our students to become environmentally literate but also capable, aware, citizens with the 21st Century skills necessary to tackle today and tomorrow’s problems. The curriculum designed for this project focuses on using garden-based STEM practices to increase young students' environmental literacy. The project involved using the Next Generation Science standards, the learning goals of the proposed Michigan Environmental Literacy Plan, as well as the American Society for Engineering Education’s …
How Can A Non-Personal Interpretive Guide Increase Place Attachment For Visitors, Encourage The Appropriate Development Of Sustainable Community-Based Ecotourism, And Increase Knowledge Of The Desert And Coastal Ecosystems And Migratory Whales Of Baja Mexico?, Mahin Hamilton
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
Small ecotour companies run whale-watching tours in remote, protected lagoons of Baja California Sur every winter, as gray whales migrate there to mate and give birth to their young. Often, tourists must drive for hours each way to reach the lagoons for their tour. When tourists get to the small villages that are the base camp for whale watching, their only guides are the boat captains, who do not normally speak English (the main language of tourists in the area). A non-personal interpretive guide would bridge the gap of information, so that tourists learn about the ecology, history, and culture …
Food Justice And Urban Agriculture: Using City Spaces To Foster Equity, Jessica Giese
Food Justice And Urban Agriculture: Using City Spaces To Foster Equity, Jessica Giese
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations
In an increasingly urban society, urban agriculture creates opportunities to address inequalities in access to healthy foods and bridge gaps in our food systems. While solving the problems of food and environmental injustice demands large-scale changes at a systemic level, urban agriculture can promote community engagement, education, and sovereignty, empowering city residents to gain control over their resources and access to nutritious foods. This research seeks to explain how two very different urban agricultural projects are impacting their communities through access, engagement, and education. Intersections Food Forest is a neighborhood project that utilizes an empty city lot to cultivate perennial …
Place-Based Education And Nature Journaling Curriculum Development, Emaline Kelley
Place-Based Education And Nature Journaling Curriculum Development, Emaline Kelley
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
nature. Educators must find ways to bring nature to the classroom. Nature journaling uses unique geographies of places as a basis for teaching natural science and other subjects. The nature journaling curriculum development project here, dedicated to natural science and environmental education asks, in what ways could nature study and place-based education be taught to students who live in the urban environment? Goals, learning benefits, and results of nature study and place-based education will be discussed in the literature review. Nature journaling as a tool of learning, along with its benefits, will be discoursed to better understand why the project …
How Using Multidisciplinary Approaches To Mainstream Education Can Increase Diversity In Environmental Education And Improve Students’ Environmental Literacy, Nathaniel Nordberg
How Using Multidisciplinary Approaches To Mainstream Education Can Increase Diversity In Environmental Education And Improve Students’ Environmental Literacy, Nathaniel Nordberg
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
For there to be solutions to environmental issues people of diverse perspectives need to be able to critically think and collaborate together to work through possible solutions. Historically, environmental education has been missing many voices from the BIPOC communities in finding creative solutions to environmental issues. This Capstone Project had the driving question of, Can increasing diversity in environmental education improve students' environmental literacy? The literature reviewed showed that environmental education cannot be a stand alone curriculum. Instead, it needs to be a multidisciplinary approach to the curriculum that allows students to critically think about real world issues that society …
Using Video Games To Teach Social Studies, Model Careers, And Develop Environmental Identities Within Our Classrooms, Luke Stahlmann
Using Video Games To Teach Social Studies, Model Careers, And Develop Environmental Identities Within Our Classrooms, Luke Stahlmann
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
Decades of research point towards great, but unfortunately untapped, potential video games provide classrooms for meaningful learning and enrichment. Despite a lot of academic thought being poured into the subject of video games’ educational value, we do not see them being used commonly within classrooms or even cohesively studied as different games are focused on and successes are measured in non uniform ways. The content created for this project focuses on taking much of the academic foundation or merit of learning through video games and advocates them to a general audience alongside modern games that exemplify learning principles covered. The …
A Sense Of Place In Environmental Education: A Forest Ecology Curriculum, Samantha Selter
A Sense Of Place In Environmental Education: A Forest Ecology Curriculum, Samantha Selter
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
This project discusses the definition of a sense of place as it pertains to environmental education to present the influence of people-to-place relationships in developing environmental stewardship and pro-environmental behavior. Researchers across the fields of geography, environmentalism, and psychology have long identified places as being important to how people see the world and how they act in different places. Fostering place attachment and place meaning within environmental curricula can advance environmental understanding and responsibility through the use of local ecology and problem solving of environmental issues. The curriculum unit within this project focuses on invasive species and uses this environmental …
How Can Informal Environmental Education Curriculum And Pedagogy Be More Inclusive For Autism Spectrum Disorder (Asd) Students?, Claire Dobie
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
It is becoming common for teachers of all subjects to gain training or take courses that specifically help them integrate environmental education (EE) into their core subject (Dada et al., 2018). At times, formal educators will team up with informal environmental educators to offer such opportunities. Informal educators, while well-versed in environmental activities, topics and issues, may not have an understanding of how to teach. This means that those who do not learn well in a traditional classroom may struggle to take part in EE. Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are an example of individuals that learn in a …
Observing The Impact Of Environmental Science Exploration And Discovery On The Social-Emotional Learning Of 2nd Grade Students, Laura Sammis
Observing The Impact Of Environmental Science Exploration And Discovery On The Social-Emotional Learning Of 2nd Grade Students, Laura Sammis
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations
The guiding question in this study was, how do outdoor science exploration and discovery impact the social-emotional learning of 2nd grade students. This study documents the author’s development, facilitation and analysis of a 3-week science unit that included an increase of time spent outdoors. This study was conducted in an observational and descriptive qualitative manner that used the researcher’s real-time observations, reflections and student surveys. The author utilized research literature to develop meaning and understanding of the concepts to support the importance of the study. The author describes the study in terms of successes and limitations. The study concludes that …
How Can Teachers Utilize A Curriculum To Expand Students’ Knowledge Of Waste Management And Change Their Waste Reduction Behaviors?, Alexis Craig
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
Research has shown that environmental education is an important tool to develop students’ knowledge of the environment and foster more environmentally friendly behaviors (Braun et. al., 2018). Lack of education in waste management and waste reduction fields has led to confusion on where waste goes, what can be recycled, and how students’ can change their behaviors to reduce their waste footprint. This paper investigates waste management in the United States and North Dakota, and how it can be implemented into an environmental education curriculum. The curriculum designed for this project uses this information and these environmental education and behavior change …
How Can Personalized Learning In The Environmental Classroom Inspire Student-Led Environmental Action And Advocacy?, Sarah Bingea
How Can Personalized Learning In The Environmental Classroom Inspire Student-Led Environmental Action And Advocacy?, Sarah Bingea
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
Environmental education plays a major role in developing environmentally literate citizens who are prepared as future leaders and problem solvers in the environmental field. A personalized learning model supports the goals of environmental education by allowing students to determine individual goals, providing students autonomy to make their own choices, and giving students learner agency to use their voice and take action in their communities (Rickabaugh, 2016). This capstone project addresses the question: How can personalized learning in the environmental classroom inspire student-led environmental action and advocacy? The project includes a personalized learning curriculum to be utilized in a sixth grade …
Utilizing Experiential Education In Nature-Based Settings To Impact Pro-Environmental Behaviors, Delaney Babich
Utilizing Experiential Education In Nature-Based Settings To Impact Pro-Environmental Behaviors, Delaney Babich
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
Spending time in nature can have many effects on a person. I wanted to find out if one of these effects was a change in behavior regarding sustainable actions and mindsets. The research question posed for this project is: How does experiential education in a nature based setting impact pro-environmental behaviors? After researching many different forms of outdoor education and frameworks widely used in education, I decided my project would consist of an interactive activity booklet meant to be taken to a park or natural space along the Mississippi River in the Twin Cities, or the surrounding areas. I wanted …
How Can Environmental Based Library Programming Benefit Communities?, Samantha Morrison
How Can Environmental Based Library Programming Benefit Communities?, Samantha Morrison
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
As technology advances, and cities and population grow, there is a higher need for environmental education. Outdoor education provides many benefits in many different ways. Libraries offer free services to everyone in the community and provide the perfect opportunity to give everyone a chance to learn about the environment. This project focuses on enhancing library programming through nature based learning, asking the question How can communities benefit from environmental education focused library programming? Research shows that there are many different benefits to environmental education and exposure to nature. The literature reviews discusses how outdoor learning is good on mental and …
Increasing Ocean Environment Awareness In Land-Locked Middle School Students, Krista Espelien
Increasing Ocean Environment Awareness In Land-Locked Middle School Students, Krista Espelien
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
Abstract The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has defined ocean literacy as an “understanding of the ocean’s influence on you — and your influence on the ocean” (NOAA, 2013). Students are future decision-makers and engaging them in ocean literacy is vital as they will continue to be confronted with climate change throughout their lives. This capstone project addresses the question: How can experiential education on the topic of coral reef restoration increase the investment of land-locked, middle school students in marine conservation? This document identifies how ocean literacy and marine science topics are poorly represented in school curricula despite …