The Effect of Environmental Education on Schoolchildren, Their Parents, and Community Members: A Study of Intergenerational and Intercommunity Learning

Abstract

The authors examined the hypothesis that children learn and retain conservation principles in school environments and transfer them to their parents. Elementary school students in a Costa Rican village received a 1-month environmental education course on Scarlet Macaw conservation and natural history. Students, their parents, and an adult control group were given a 21-question pretest and the same test upon conclusion of the course (first posttest) and 8-months later (second posttest). Comparing correct responses between the pretest and first posttest, students improved significantly on 71% of questions, parents improved on 38% of the questions, and the adult control group improved on none of the questions. Comparing correct responses between the pretest and second posttest, students improved significantly on 67%, parents on 52% and the control group on 29%. The authors theorize that parents learned from children and both groups transmitted course information to neighbors (control group) resulting in an increase in control group learning.

Key Words:

• community-based education
• Costa Rica
• endangered species conservation
• intergenerational
• learning
• retention
• Scarlet Macaw

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robert Ray

Christopher Vaughan directed the Regional Wildlife Management Program at the Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica, and is currently with the Deparment of Wildlife Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Milwaukee Public Museum. Julie Gack, a University of Wisconsin-Madison biology graduate, is with the Peace Corps working on environmental education in Paraguay. Humberto Solorazano teaches at the Quebrada Ganado Elementary School in Quebrada Ganado, Costa Rica. Robert Ray is an assistant dean and professor in College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison