Positive motivation to perform work tasks has been associated with better performance and outcomes in both the organizational and informal education literature. In environmental education (EE), this means that more motivated instructors are likely to provide better programs for their participants. In this exploratory study across 15 states in the…

Effectively communicating environmental issues to motivate visitors' behavior is critical for zoos to accomplish their missions. We examined the relationship between zoo visitors' environmental concern and agreement with messages framed by environmental concern. Findings from two zoos (N = 298; N = 400), using two message formats, provided nearly…

Zoos embrace docents/volunteers as a means of interpreting the threats to wildlife and biodiversity to visitors. To accomplish this, zoos provide docents' education, training, and work experience. Docents themselves also engage in solitary and social wildlife experiences outside of their volunteer obligations. This study examined what motivates…

The purposes of this study were to determine the impact of a professional development program on the confidence levels and classroom practices of the participants and their attitudes toward the environment. The program had immersed teachers in a watershed study that took them from the headwaters of a 310-mile river to its confluence with the Ohio…

The results of an evaluation instrument developed to assess the attitudes of college students towards environmental decisionmaking indicated that attitudes did change significantly in the experimental groups, regardless of educational methodology. Recommendations of the researcher included the need for further research in the attitudinal realm of…

The new Master of Environmental Science degree program at Miami University is interdisciplinary in approach and problem solving in methodology. The training program consists of interdisciplinary core courses designed to develop the problem solving process, and of courses in an area of specialization. The program is considered a success. (MA)

Examines associations between the level of teacher preparation in environmental education (EE) and the level of implementation of EE in elementary school classrooms in Wisconsin and Ohio. Measures elementary school teachers' attitudes toward EE. Findings indicate that Wisconsin elementary teachers received more preservice EE preparation than Ohio…