IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i17p6817-d402556.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effect of a Nature-Based Environmental Education Program on Children’s Environmental Attitudes and Behaviors: A Randomized Experiment with Primary Schools

Author

Listed:
  • Silvia Collado

    (Department of Psychology and Sociology, Universidad de Zaragoza, 44003 Zaragoza, Spain)

  • Claudio D. Rosa

    (Department of Development and Environment, Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz, Ilhéus 45658-630, Brazil)

  • José A. Corraliza

    (Department of Social Psychology and Methodology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain)

Abstract

The evidence about the effects of nature-based instruction on pro-environmentalism is uncompelling, mainly due to a lack of controlled experiments. This hinders causal claims and the provision of intervention guidelines. We present an experiment examining the impact of a nature-based environmental education (NBEE) program included in the school curriculum on children’s environmental attitudes (EA) and behaviors (EB). Children who followed the program through traditional instruction were used as a control group. Seven Spanish primary schools participated in the program and school classes were randomly assigned to the NBEE program (experimental group, N = 516) or the environmental education (EE) through traditional instruction (control group, N = 218). Our results indicate that children’s EA increased more in the NBEE group than in the control group. On average, EB remained virtually the same in both groups of children across time. In light of our findings, we encourage the promotion of a nature-based pedagogy in formal education to enhance children’s environmental attitudes.

Suggested Citation

  • Silvia Collado & Claudio D. Rosa & José A. Corraliza, 2020. "The Effect of a Nature-Based Environmental Education Program on Children’s Environmental Attitudes and Behaviors: A Randomized Experiment with Primary Schools," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-12, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:17:p:6817-:d:402556
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/17/6817/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/17/6817/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Teresa Monte & Pedro Reis, 2021. "Design of a Pedagogical Model of Education for Environmental Citizenship in Primary Education," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-23, May.
    2. Renan de Almeida Barbosa & Christoph Randler & José Vicente Lima Robaina, 2021. "Values and Environmental Knowledge of Student Participants of Climate Strikes: A Comparative Perspective between Brazil and Germany," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-18, July.
    3. Rūtenis Jančius & Algirdas Gavenauskas & Antanas Ūsas, 2021. "The Influence of Values and the Social Environment on the Environmental Attitudes of Students: The Case of Lithuania," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-22, October.
    4. María-Carmen Ricoy & Cristina Sánchez-Martínez, 2022. "Raising Ecological Awareness and Digital Literacy in Primary School Children through Gamification," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-19, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:17:p:6817-:d:402556. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.