High School Students' Knowledge, Attitudes, and Levels of Enjoyment of an Environmental Education Unit on Nonnative Plants

Abstract

The authors applied constructivist learning theory to environmental education to explore knowledge gains, student attitudes, and engagement among high school students exposed to a week-long unit on nonnative plant species. The authors compared constructivist and traditional teaching methods. Each class was given a pretest and a posttest. The constructivist group significantly increased knowledge scores and attitudes, whereas the traditional group did not. The 2 groups did not differ significantly on engagement.

Keywords:

• attitudes
• constructivist learning theory
• environmental education (EE)
• environmental knowledge
• student engagement