Influence of the natural setting on environmental education outcomes

Abstract

Environmental education (EE) typically occurs in natural settings, which research suggests may enhance learning outcomes. Although field trips are commonly used to teach EE, few studies have isolated the influence of different setting characteristics for enhancing participant outcomes during an EE field trip. According to the literature, certain attributes of the natural setting, including novelty, beauty, and naturalness, as well as how the setting is used such as through place-based education, immersion, and time spent inside vs. outside, are thought to positively impact people’s experiences with nature. In this study, we collected data from 334 EE field trip programs for 5-8^th grade students to investigate the influence of these natural setting characteristics on positive learning outcomes. Results suggest that the naturalness and novelty of the setting, the use of place-based education, and spending more time outside vs. inside all positively correlated with more positive student outcomes. The implications of the results for environmental educators are discussed.

Keywords:

• Environmental Education
• nature-based learning
• instruction
• teaching
• nature experiences
• field trips

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Acknowledgements

Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation and the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

Notes

1 To account for the potential unequal weighting of specific subscales in the EE21 index, we also calculated a standardized EE21 index score using z scores from each subscale and reran all analyses presented in this paper. The results/significant pathways on all tests did not change. We also controlled for the influence of majority race of group and grade level by group mean centering EE21 data and the results/significant pathways also did not change.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for the study was provided by the National Science Foundation’s Advancing Informal STEM Education program Pathways Award (DRL 1612416) and the Institute for Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grant (MG-10-16-0057-16).