Fostering connectedness to nature in higher education

Abstract

Environmental thinkers and educators have argued for the importance of celebrating our connectedness to nature, or the perception of being part of, rather than separate from, the natural world. Using pre-and post-test measurements of Nature Relatedness and supplemental interviews, this study addresses the question of whether a particular introductory college-level ecology course can increase learners’ connectedness to nature, both independently and in comparison to a similar course. The results show that the course significantly increased participants’ connectedness, particularly their identification with nature and nature-focused worldview. Other environmental courses studied demonstrated no such changes, suggesting that environmental education does not automatically lead to connectedness. However, if woven into the goals and approach of teaching, connectedness to nature can indeed be fostered in higher education. This is a promising result for educators and others working towards a sustainable future.

Keywords:

• Connectedness to nature
• nature relatedness
• higher education
• environmental education
• sustainability

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Hillary Jones, Andrei Israel, Rob Andrejewski, Lorraine Dowler, and the anonymous reviewers for their feedback and assistance.

Notes

1. Even the use of the word ‘nature’ implies that the living world is a distinct entity apart from the human world. This obfuscates how ‘nature’ is co-produced by humans (Castree and Braun 2001), and implies that ‘nature’ is a separate, non-differentiated thing to which one must connect, rather than the community of life in which we are embedded through specific contexts and relationships (Beery and Wolf-Watz 2014).

2. In order to facilitate conversation among environmental educators about this course and the findings of this study, this paper does not anonymize the study site or instructor (with the instructor’s permission).

3. For more information about BiSci 3, see http://www.chrisuhl.net/ or the companion book for the course (Uhl 2013).

4. Though this could potentially bias the sample in favor of students who have positive regard for the course, and are therefore more open to developing connectedness, the threat of selection bias is low for four reasons. First, the response rate (over 70%) is high. Second, there are no statistically significant differences in pre-test or post-test scores between participants who completed both surveys and nonparticipants who only completed one: t(302) = 0.642, p = 0.521 for composite NR pre-test scores and t(262) = 0.145, p = 0.885 for composite NR post-test scores. Third, the comparison group participants were similarly limited to those in attendance, with presumably similar potential biases regarding their courses. Lastly, attendance is required in BiSci 3, and the course attendance rate (an average of approximately 81% on the survey days) is similar to other large environmental science lecture courses where attendance is graded (Riffell and Sibley 2004).