Environmental Education Commons^™

Do Themes Improve Visitor Outcomes In Interpretive Programs?, Amber K. Hawes

All Theses

Thematic interpretation is widely promoted as being integral to an effective interpretive program. Some studies have suggested that thematic interpretation may enhance visitor outcomes; however, park visitor demographics have changed over the last decade, and others have suggested alternative approaches. In this study, we systematically observed live interpretive programs at 330 programs at 52 National Parks across the United States, monitored the extent and characteristics of theme usage, and collected visitor surveys immediately following each program. We used these data to determine the influence of the presence and characteristics of themes and theme questions on visitor outcomes. The results suggest …

Groundwater-Dependent Ecosystems In Southeastern Utah: An Integrated Analysis Of Hydrology, Ecology, And Landscape Change, Colten Lay

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

In Southeastern Utah, springs play a critical role in sustaining groundwater-dependent ecosystems (GDEs) in a semi-arid environment. However, they remain understudied and face growing threats from climate change, land use modifications, and hydrologic alterations. This study addresses knowledge gaps in spring occurrence, hydrologic function, and ecological condition by integrating field surveys, remote sensing, and geospatial analysis across multiple spatial scales. It provides a comprehensive assessment of spring hydrology, water quality, and ecological conditions using field surveys, remote sensing, and GIS analysis to establish a foundational baseline of GDE resources in the region. I applied a multi-scale monitoring approach across the …

Digital Infrastructure For The Regenerative Movement: A Case Study Of The Mycelium Learning Network, Abigail Karparis

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

The regenerative movement is gaining momentum worldwide, driven by communities working to restore ecological and social systems through place-based, culturally rooted action. Yet many of the groups leading this work, especially in the Global South or in hyper-local contexts, remain digitally invisible due to structural barriers, including limited access to appropriate technology, funding constraints, and misalignment between available tools and local values. Conventional digital infrastructures often exclude or marginalize these efforts, leaving regenerative practitioners disconnected from each other and from potential sources of support.

This article explores these challenges and presents a case study response: the co-creation of accessible, relational …

Cultivating Resilience In The Anthropocene: Evaluating A Gssw Ecological Justice Curriculum, Windy Selig

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This Dissertation in Practice evaluated the University of Denver’s Graduate School of Social Work (GSSW) Ecological Justice Pathway to examine how resilience is conceptualized and cultivated within the curriculum. Grounded in a constructivist paradigm and guided by an ecological justice framework, this evaluation explored the pedagogical and curricular strategies designed to prepare social work students for the emotional, ethical, and professional demands of practicing in the Anthropocene—a time marked by ecological degradation, climate crisis, and compounding social inequities.

Through qualitative methods, including faculty interviews and curriculum document analysis, the evaluation identified both explicit and implicit components that foster student resilience. …

Arts-Based Sustainability: From New York To Malawi, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Recognizing that libraries serve multiple constituencies and subject areas, this chapter documents and advocates for development of transdisciplinary arts-based research (ABR) and culture-related projects linked to environmental challenges. Libraries contribute collections and spaces, as well as the research of library and information scientists. Libraries are currently among invisible contributors to sustainability planning and services. The chapter will link this invisibility to the value of what visual arts refer to as negative space elements in subjects ranging from traditional ecological knowledge to environmental science. Library collections, projects, and research contribute to education for sustainable development (ESD) as required to achieve the …

Educational Efficacy Of Private Well-Testing Workshops And The Surveillance Of Private Drinking Water Quality In Connecticut, Alec Janis, Michael Dietz, Meredith Metcalf

Journal of Human Sciences and Extension

More than 820,000 Connecticut residents rely on groundwater from private wells, yet minimal regulations address well water quality. Extension programs across the United States have begun to provide private drinking water education and testing assistance to address this public health gap. Few studies have analyzed the efficacy of these programs.

We delivered four workshops across Connecticut, from November 2022 to November 2023, where participants were given an educational presentation on private drinking water and an opportunity to test their well-water quality at a subsidized cost. After participating in the workshops, participants believed they were more confident to begin annual testing, …

Field Journal: The Excluded Middle, Carrie E. Kouts

Masters Theses

What does it look like to engage with organisms and landscapes at the periphery of anthropocentric value structures? How does one break the internalized myth that the “built” environment is excluded from the natural world? When does a hyper-mobile and hyper-commodified society confront the exponential crisis of animal death? Within this series of journal entries, field notes, collection observations, weird prose, and sensory musings, one will find questions on the nature of being human and the complex narratives of care we encounter in a world shared with more-than-humans. Each handwritten vignette and photograph from daily life weaves a non-linear and …

Enhancing Water Supply Resilience & Sustainability: Potential Solutions To Address Water Scarcity In Bogotá, Colombia, Sophia Alvarez Wong

Master's Projects and Capstones

Municipal water utilities are in urgent need of adapting to the intensifying impacts of climate change and population growth—key drivers of urban water scarcity worldwide. In rapidly expanding cities like Bogota, Colombia, these pressures have contributed to a severe water crisis driven by prolonged droughts, ecosystem degradation, increasing water demands, and overdependence on limited water sources. This study explores potential adaptation and management strategies that utilities can implement to sustainably strengthen supply system resilience and enhance water security, in the context of low- to middle-income regions. A series of comparative and case study analyses were conducted to assess the feasibility …

Planting Seeds, Changing Minds: A Narrative Analysis Of Environmental Children’S Books, Julianna Jovillar

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Children’s books are some of the earliest forms of entertainment and education a person will interact with in their lifetime. Simultaneously weaving a tale and teaching a lesson, children’s books, therefore, have the great potential to communicate important lessons and mindsets at young ages. Utilizing narrative theory (Fisher, 1984) and ecocriticism (Glotfelty, 1996), while also considering environmental ideologies and narrative components (Bloomfield, 2024), this study explores the functions of environmental children’s books and how they might communicate environmental messaging and encourage ecological thinking. Following a narrative analysis of 46 environmental children’s books, the results of this study indicate that there …

Community Voices, Climate Action Choices: Working Towards A Resilient Monterey County, Lesley A. Solano Alonso

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Vulnerable communities in Monterey County face disproportionate environmental and health impacts due to climate change, yet many residents remain unaware of the tools and resources available to support local action. This capstone project was implemented in partnership with Ecology Action (EA) and the Resilient Central Coast (RCC) campaign to increase awareness and engagement with the RCC platform. Serving diverse communities across Monterey County, the project included bilingual outreach efforts, community tabling, educational presentations, and a climate action survey. Over 650 residents were engaged directly, resulting in 99 new household sign-ups on the RCC website, a major milestone for the agency. …

The Oaks Vs. Other University Dining Facilities: Does Architecture Affect Food Waste?, Sydney Bezich

Honors Projects

The purpose of this study was to find a connection between food waste and architecture and determine how food waste can be mitigated using architectural solutions and methods. Food waste is an important issue worldwide and is present in university dining facilities. This study focuses on university dining facilities’ preventable food waste at both the pre-consumer and post-consumer levels. Architecture, in this project, is defined as all aspects of the built environment. This includes, but is not limited to, design and layout, materials, systems, building operations, marketing displays, and sustainability. Methods for this study included researching sustainability, architecture, and food …

Melting Ice, Moving Minds, Andres Cabrero

Montserrat Student Scholarship

Ice Watch is a large-scale public installation by Olafur Eliasson that brings melting glacial ice into busy city spaces to make the effects of climate change both visible and urgent.. Eliasson wants people to physically feel the reality of climate change, not just learn about it. He uses art to turn abstract data into a real, emotional experience. Climate change can feel distant, and even somewhat invisible. By putting giant blocks of ice in public, the project helps people face the problem in a physical, immediate way.

Diversity And Habitat Use Of Bats In Modified Suburban Landscapes, Brittany Morgera

Biology Presentations

Bats occupy critical ecological niches and perform important ecosystem services like controlling insect populations. However, humans have altered bat habitat substantially, resulting in the reduction of bat populations. The goals of this research are to assess bat diversity and habitat use across different levels of suburban habitat modification. To accomplish this, we deployed passive acoustic recorders at twelve locations with varying human impact in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. In accordance with The North American Bat Monitoring Program’s standards, acoustic analysis software was used to identify bat species. Manual identification methods from The Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative were used to verify these …

So Much More Than Summer Camp: The Importance Of Environmental Education At Nature Centers, Olivia P. Upton

Student Scholar Showcase

In conjunction with my Westover Honors Thesis, my Bonner Legacy Project focused on the development of environmental education curriculum and programming at Camp Kum-Ba-Yah Nature Center [CKBY]. Informed by a review of current climate education, lesson plans and activities were modified in collaboration with CKBY staff to be more climate-focused and aid in the development of systems thinking skills. Activities were compiled and edited to teach concepts, such as food webs, feedback loops, and the greenhouse effect, while also promoting team-building and critical thinking. Educational kits for each activity were created, which include all materials needed as well as a …

So Much More Than Summer Camp: The Importance Of Environmental Education At Nature Centers, Olivia P. Upton

Student Scholar Showcase

Education in the U.S. currently faces a deficit in the promotion and proper teaching of climate change curriculum. Oftentimes caused by a lack of clear teaching standards for environmental education, the American political machine stirring up controversy, or teacher preferences, there are obvious gaps in the teaching of climate change curriculum. As climate change is considered one of the greatest threats facing humanity today, there is a need to educate people, especially younger generations, in order to navigate future challenges and make informed decisions. Nature centers offer the ideal location for the promotion of climate change education based on their …

Tiny Creatures, Big Lessons: Using Music Education And Ecoliteracy To Impact Young Learners' Perspectives On Bugs And Nature, Paige Burgess '25

Honor Scholar Theses

This thesis aims to demonstrate that relationships between students and nature can be improved through teaching young learners about music and bugs together, potentially leading to a greater overall love for and willingness to protect nature. The thesis features original teacher action research conducted over multiple weeks in a first grade classroom, with observations and data to support the efficacy of the methods discussed. This thesis analyzes literature that supports how increasing empathy toward bugs at a young age can have tangible benefits for the environment, how ecoliteracy as a framework is an effective means of teaching about nature, and …

Leaf It To The Ai: Visualizing Foliage With Machine Learning, Chelsy Tinacba, George Sikazwe, Michael Frye

Posters - 2025

This project sets out to create a tool to help aid in the research and monitoring of the threatened prickly cacti [Fig. 1]. due to an invasive species of insect growing to be a threat. This website displays current and predictive locations of foliage within a region.

To get the data of the predictive location, an additional program was developed that uses a machine learning model to provide coordinates of potential areas where more plants may be. The computer program provides a visualization of potential patterns for the foliage in the database. The machine learning model combs through the data …

Energy Saving Through Climate Education: Climate Sensitization In School For Mindful Consumption At Home, Haritha Saranga, Satyajit Roy, Kanchan Mukherjee

Working Papers

An effective fight against climate change requires both a “top-down” approach and “bottom-up” changes; that is, adopting sustainable practices at the individual and household levels, which requires knowledge, belief, and willingness to engage in climate action. Extant research has shown a number of challenges in bringing about persistent changes in human behavior. We propose to bring about mindful energy consumption behavior at the household level by using children as the conduit for behavior change. Scalable interventions that create awareness about climate change and its impact through early self-regulation in middle and high schools are a promising and cost-effective opportunity to …

Comparison Of Climate Change Awareness Among Coastal Communities In Northern And Southern East Java, Indonesia, Sukma Perdana Prasetya, Ketut Prasetyo, Warsono Warsono, Sarmini Sarmini, Muhammad Turhan Yani, Agus Suprijono, Sugeng Hariyanto, Nasution Nasution, Mohd Hairy Ibrahim

Jurnal Pendidikan Geografi: Kajian, Teori, dan Praktek dalam Bidang Pendidikan dan Ilmu Geografi

One of the important issues in the world today is climate change. Human activities and natural factors mainly cause these changes. The main factor that triggers this phenomenon is the need for more public knowledge in dealing with and anticipating the impacts of climate change. Therefore, this research analyzed the comparative knowledge and perceptions of coastal communities regarding climate change in East Java. Purposive sampling and snowball methods were used to select 110 respondents to complete the survey form. 50 respondents were taken from residents on the Sendang Biru coast, South Malang Regency, and 60 were taken from residents on …

Force Of Nature (2024) By Ann E. Burg, Maughn Rollins Gregory

Middle Grades Books

Rachel Carson launched the modern environmental movement with books that combined detailed observations of the natural world, scientific research, and philosophical reflection on humanity’s relationship with nature — all conveyed in poetic language. Ann E. Burg’s fictional biography-in-verse Force of Nature shows how these habits of observation, questioning, reflection, and expression began in Carson’s childhood, and invites readers to follow her lines of inquiry. Can we provide for human well-being without sacrificing the well-being of non-human life? Can we provide for the well-being of certain human populations without sacrificing the well-being of others? Can we indulge our wonder about, and …