Evaluating the short term impact of environmental education with numbers and statistics I am currently working on developing measurable objective results for an environmental education and leadership program for middle school students. I want to show positive impacts that an environmental education/leadership curriculum has on students over the course of that year. I have found several long term studies, but I would like to find resources to measure the immediate impacts (with in a school year) of this type of education that we can use to show families, donors and the public. Particularly I would be interested in seeing if there are any programs, studies or tools showing links between environmental education/leadership development and increased academic performance, healthier behavior and lifestyle choices, social and emotional development (including community and civic engagement) and personal self sufficiency. I am also hoping that we could use this as an organizational tool to measure our effectiveness in providing high quality educational programs and to improve on the programs we currently offer. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Aaron Schreiber Stainthorp
Leaders in the Making
Program Coordinator
For Love of Children
202-349-3507
www.floc.org
Evaluating the Short Term Impact of Environmental Education with Numbers and Statistics
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You might try searching on http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/landing.jhtml which is where the US D of Ed has links to multiple research data bases.
The Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory and other D of Ed funded regional labs are also a wealth of information on educational research issues. http://www.nwrel.org/index.php
I am working with the Public Health Educators in Medical Schools network to coordinate pilots on teaching climate change and the determinants of health to medical students. So far 8 medical schools are taking part.
In order to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching, we are selecting/developing a shared evaluation tool which can be used in each of the medical schools participating. In addition to assessing knowledge gained, we would like to evaluate changes in attitudes and behaviour as a result of the teaching.
I was interested to see this forum thread from last year on evaluating the impact of environmental teaching. Does anyone know of any further tools for evaluating behaviour change, which might be suitable for our purpose?
Frances Mortimer
Medical Director
The Campaign for Greener Healthcare
United Kingdom
www.greenerhealthcare.org
I am also very interested in obtaining information about models used to assess and evaluate environmental education programs both from a qualitative and quantitative point of view. I am done some searching on the net and have found a couple of documents you might want to check Go to http://www.obsesityresearch.org/cgi/full/15/4/906 I also saw a report which you should be able to Google 2004-2005 Green Schools Programs Evaluation prepared for California Public Utilities Commision by Quantec I found both of these items on the net. I would also be interested in what other people are doing to assess and evaluate their public education programs. My program is directed to elementary school children (Grades 4 and 5) and I will be planning evaluation for the end of next year (June 2009).
Thanks.