Until now, many efforts in the area of environmental education, intended to instill consciously responsible behaviour into the general public in Germany, have failed. Several of the available intervention studies aimed at improving environmental behaviour of pupils with classroom tuition were able to show positive results, but there were often…

Both scientists and policy-makers emphasize the importance of education for influencing pro-environmental behavior and minimizing the effects of climate change on biological and physical systems. Education has the potential to impact students' system knowledge--their understanding of the variables that affect the climate system--and action…

Students from three different British Columbia grade six classes were followed through two weeks of instruction on climate change. Pre, post, and follow-up surveys were used to determine the differences in knowledge gained and retained by students that received direct instruction from their science teacher, and by those who received equivalent…

This constructivist study investigates 225 student drawings and explanations from three different schools in the midwest in the US, to identify seventh grade students' mental models of the greenhouse effect. Five distinct mental models were derived from an inductive analysis of the content of the students' drawings and explanations: Model 1, a…

This investigation examines the use of structural equation modeling (SEM) procedures to develop and validate scales to measure environmental responsibility, character development and leadership, and attitudes toward school for environmental education programs servicing middle school children. The scales represent outcomes commonly of interest to…

The term environment-based education (EBE) describes a form of school-based environmental education in which an instructor uses the environment as a context for integrating subjects and a source of real world learning experiences. Despite the growing body of evidence that supports the educational efficacy of this instructional approach and its…

This article reports on a longitudinal study of a two-semester middle school environmental learning course that departs from traditional Mexican expository pedagogies through the incorporation of experiential and service learning approaches. In the short term, course participants acquired a heightened awareness of environmental issues, augmented…

Despite its importance as a central goal in environmental education, there appears to be little consensus about how best to document, assess and evaluate understanding of environmental concepts. This illustrative case study describes and demonstrates the use of the concept mapping strategy as an effective tool for assessing environmental…

Over the past three decades, the environmental justice movement has developed out of growing concern about unequal distribution of environmental harm and unequal access to environmental resources. The mainstream environmental movement has been criticized for failing to address adequately environmental justice issues. Several scholars have claimed…

This paper reports on a longitudinal study on how science student teachers' reasoning about a complex environmental issue developed through a teacher education programme in mathematics and science for grades 1-7 (ages 7-13). Of special interest was to follow the ways in which student teachers used scientific knowledge in their reasoning. The issue…

This paper examines children's and adolescents' environmental awareness in rural Madagascar. Two types of school survey among 8- to 21-year-old students and pupils in 18 schools were used for data collection. The objective of this comparative study was to examine the environmental awareness and knowledge of children and adolescents living under…

This paper explores children's beliefs about global warming and energy sources from a psychological perspective, focusing upon situational influences upon subjective beliefs, including perceived self-efficacy. The context of the research is one of growing concern at the potential impacts of global warming, yet demonstrably low levels of…

Understanding how children think about the needs of animals may aid bridging from how they care about individual animals to caring about the environment more generally. This study explored changes with age in children's conceptions of animals' needs, including how such conceptions may extend beyond the individual animal to larger systems and…