Using online tools in participatory research with adolescents to promote civic engagement and environmental mobilization: the WaterCircle (WC) project

Abstract

The WaterCircle (WC) project was implemented in a school, with young adolescents, to address environmental problems. Framed in a participatory research (PR) approach, this school-and-community based intervention includes the use of online tools through which environmental problems in the community are discussed within and by a group of students. Using a quasi-experimental design, with intervention and control groups, the present study involved 361 young adolescents, in grades 7 to 9, from a public school in the northern region of Portugal. Mixed methods were used for data collection and analysis, namely based on questionnaires administered in the pre- and post-test moments, as well as on students’ discourses produced in the classroom during planned activities. Statistically significant changes on self-efficacy were found for the experimental group, suggesting that the intervention program has the potential to raise young people’s empowerment regarding environmental issues. The WC program seems to foster students’ awareness of the socio-political dimensions of environmental problems, since they were able to identify different actors in the community who should be involved in the proposed solutions. Longer-term intervention is required to foster the impact of the PR on the students’ experience.

Keywords:

• Environmental education
• online tools
• participatory research
• mixed methodologies
• school intervention

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the school board, the teachers, all the staff and especially the students from Escola Secundária Dr. Joaquim Gomes Ferreira Alves, where this project was run.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by: Base Funding - UIDB/50020/2020 of the Associate Laboratory LSRE-LCM - funded by national funds through FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC). Rita Ruivo Marques – FCT PostDoc Scholarship grant SFRH/BPD/112046/2015.

Notes on contributors

Rita Ruivo Marques

Rita Ruivo Marques is a post-doctoral researcher in Education Sciences, since 2016, at the University of Porto. She holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering, having dedicated nine years to research on environmental catalysis for water remediation. Her present interests go for knowledge transfer and dissemination in the field of education for sustainability, using participatory methodologies, critical thinking and scientific thinking. She is member of the Associate Laboratory LSRE-LCM and of the Centre for Research and Intervention in Education (CIIE).

Carla Malafaia

Carla Malafaia holds a PhD in Education Sciences from the University of Porto (this was supported by a grant from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology – FCT – SFRH/BD/92113/2012). She has been actively involved in research since 2008 both in national and international projects (funded by the FCT and the European Commission). She is currently a researcher in the CATCH-EyoU project, funded by the European Commission, Horizon 2020, and she is full member of the Centre for Research and Intervention in Education (CIIE).

Joaquim L. Faria

Joaquim L. Faria received his Ph.D (Physical Organic Chemistry – 1993) from Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon, by working in the group of S. Steenken at the Max Planck Institute for Radiation Chemistry. He joined the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto in 1992, where he is now Associate Professor, and acts as Board Member of the Department of Chemical Engineering, member of the Scientific Committee of the MSc in Chemical Engineering and member of the Scientific Council of the Associate Laboratory LSRE-LCM. He joined the LCM - Laboratory of Catalysis and Materials in 1994 as a staff member, where he started his research on Heterogeneous Photocatalysis. His research interests go for chemistry and materials science, advanced oxidation processes, nanotechnology and nanosciences and chemical education and communication.

Isabel Menezes

Isabel Menezes is a Professor of Education Sciences at the University of Porto where she coordinates research on citizenship education in formal and non-formal education contexts and the civic and political participation of children, young people and adults, especially in risk of exclusion (based on gender, sexual orientation, disability, literacy). She is interested in the relations between research and intervention, education and politics, and participation and psychological and societal empowerment.