EE program settings and interaction with those features can enhance learning outcomes

Environmental education (EE) can have cognitive, social, emotional, and behavioral benefits for people of all ages, especially youth. Exposure to and time spent in nature can have similar effects—enhanced cognitive function, self-discipline, creativity, and social relationships. In the digital age, youth in particular spend a significant portion of their time indoors, making outdoor education and time in nature even more crucial. While EE is often centered in nature, there is little research about the impact of specific uses and attributes of natural settings that may influence learning outcomes. This study was designed to determine the specific features of program settings and students' interactions with these settings that are most influential on learning outcomes in EE programming.

For this study, 345 one-day EE field trip programs for students in grades 5-8 in the US participated. To choose the sites, the fifty states were divided into quartiles based on a ranking derived from the states' Environmental Literacy Plans. At least ten program providers were selected from states in each quartile to ensure representative sampling, with a total of 24 states and Washington, DC, represented. Program sites included national, state or local parks, nature centers, farms, museums, and other educational organizations. The researchers identified ten outcomes to compare within the programs, and each EE outcome was scored on a scale from 0 to 10. Next, the researchers identified variables related to the setting for the EE programs, which were divided into attributes of the setting (naturalness, novelty, beauty of the non-built environment) and utilization of the setting (place-based, immersion, inside vs. outside). After refining data collection techniques with a pilot study, four pairs of researchers visited the 345 EE field trip programs between January and June 2018. They used observation sheets to identify the presence and quality of the program variables. Each student participant was asked to complete a survey (called EE21) that measured the ten EE outcomes, over 5,000 surveys were collected and 4,376 surveys from 334 programs were used in data analysis.

The researchers found that the naturalness, novelty, beauty, and place-based utilization of setting variables reflected a normal distribution, while the immersion variable was skewed as 71% of programs were either slightly immersive or not immersive at all. The natural setting variables were all positively correlated with each other, meaning that when one variable was present there were usually others present as well. They found that the naturalness, novelty, use of place-based techniques, and the proportion of time spent outside were all positively correlated with EE outcomes, meaning that higher scores on the EE outcomes survey were associated with higher rankings for these variables. Place-based approaches and naturalness enhanced novelty scores, while naturalness and novelty were direct predictors for EE outcome scores. The researchers particularly note that novelty can be extremely influential in outdoor experiences and enhance learning outcomes, as well as having a field trip outside as opposed to inside. Overall, results showed that features of a setting and the use of the setting influence each other, and influenced EE learning outcomes.

This study had limitations. The researchers used a model to identify the predictors for EE outcomes, which may have led to the exclusion of some variables that could explain similar variance in EE outcome scores. Also, there was a small amount of variance in scores based on the natural settings, which shows that there are other program qualities and approaches that influence EE outcomes.

The researchers recommend that instructors emphasize the unique features of their location, enhance novelty, and host EE programs mostly outside to increase their impact. Future research should evaluate the effects of other program characteristics or approaches on EE outcomes that were not accounted for in the model.