Rethinking Environmental Education Curriculum: Will an Age Appropriate Environmental Education Unit have a Positive Impact on Students’ Receptivity to Science?

Susanna Helm

Brown University

A.B. Environmental Studies

December 2003

Executive Summary

In the United States, environmental education is seen as an imperative element in the crusade to protect and conserve the environment. However, it is still an entirely insufficient, inconsistent, and scattered presence in the traditional school atmosphere (Hungerford, 2003). Environmental education has been without a distinct niche, where it can be most effective and efficient in educating citizens to understand, appreciate and attend to the environment and its associated problems.

With kindergarten through twelve grade school curriculums already overloaded (Chen, 1997), a move to incorporate environmental education into formal school subjects has received varying resistance. Providing adequate funding and making specific space for a new formal class in environmental education at every level of schooling seems practically impossible considering the current challenges stressing educational institutions in the United States today.

If environmental education is to flourish in future educational domains, it is essential that it be infused within the traditional academic subjects. In consideration of the present stresses on the nation’s school systems, and the challenges facing teachers, this research outlines an experimental environmental curriculum based on biodiversity, habitats and food chains. The research was conducted using qualitative methodology to assess the curriculum’s effectiveness in increasing thirty 5^th and 6^th graders receptivity to science.

The curriculum was developed based on numerous existing environmental curricula already in use and infused within broader science concepts, appropriate for this age level, including: the scientific method, conceptions of scientists and the use of science journals.

After teaching the experimental environmental curriculum over a ten week period to thirty 5^th and 6^th grade students in two classes, the research concludes that the use of the environmental education infused within a science class, provided a useful method to help increase receptivity and conceptualization of scientific topics within the study population. Students achieved a well developed understanding of the scientific concepts, and established a basic understanding of the environmental concepts.