A better place for whom? Practitioners’ perspectives on the purpose of environmental education in Finland and Madagascar

Figures & data

Figure 1. A. Concept of theory of change (ToC): activities in green, intermediate outcomes in yellow and long-term outcome in blue (Adapted from Belcher & Claus, 2020). ToC is created using a backwards mapping process: first, the desired long-term goals; second, the intermediate outcomes; and third, the activities. After defining these three elements, the interviewees draw the arrows to connect the different variables, creating a complex web of assumptions about what needs to happen to bring about change (Center for Theory of Change, 2021); B. Example of a hand-drawn ToC diagram done by an interviewee; and C. Digital version of the same ToC, with the long-term and intermediate outcomes coded according to the classification matrix.

Figure 2. Interactions among the five core outcomes of environmental education (EE) (adapted from Clark et al., 2020) are represented here as a theory of change (based on Krasny 2020). This is just an abstraction of the five core outcomes, as not all EE programs focus on environmental quality as their long-term goal. For example, some may aim to increase skills and competencies as their ultimate outcome.

Figure 3. Methodology flow chart. The chart describes each of the steps of the data analysis, connecting them with the corresponding table and figures.

Table 1. Core outcomes (Adapted from Clark et al., 2020).

Core outcome	Definition
Behavior change and action	From concrete environmental actions to behavior change and lifestyle changes
Connection to nature	Importance of experience in and interaction with the biophysical environment, including emotions and positive attitudes toward nature.
Environmental health	Improve environmental health
Social and cultural aspects	Improve social and cultural aspects of the community
Skills and competencies	Psychomotor and skill-based domain of environmental literacy; includes action competence. Includes from very concrete skills like learning how to plant a tree to very general ones like learn how to manage your resources
Cognitive domain	The knowledge-based domain: include knowledge, understanding and awareness
Economic aspect	Economic aspects: from circular or green economy to alternative livelihoods
Bridging strategies	Strategies or outcomes from another field or area that can have a synergic benefit with EE goals. Include human health, access to education and literacy, EE institutionalized and law enforcement

Figure 4. Bar graph illustrating the number of interviewees (y axis) that mentioned at least once the outcomes classified into each of the eight categories (x axis), differentiated between Finland (green) and Madagascar (purple) and long-term outcomes (dark color) and intermediate outcomes (light color).

Figure 5. Core outcomes for environmental education in Finland (on the left) and Madagascar (on the right). The three different sizes of the bubbles indicate how often different interviewees mentioned that outcome (from small to big, less to more often). The top outcomes are the ones defined as long-term outcomes, whereas the bottom ones are the intermediate outcomes.

Belcher, B., & Claus, R. (2020). Theory of change. Td-net toolbox profile. Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences: Td-Net Toolbox for Co-Producing Knowledge, 5. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3717451

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Krasny, M. E. (2020). Advancing environmental education practice. Cornell University Press.

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