Environmental hope and hope-enhancing activities are linked to pro-environmental behavior and social well-being in Israeli students

Two goals of environmental education are to improve the social well-being (SWB) of students, and to promote pro-environmental behaviors (PEB). Achieving these goals is an important part of developing healthy and happy individuals in society and protecting the environment. In past studies, environmental hope has proven to be a strong predictor for PEB, but its impact on SWB is not clear. In addition, there has been limited research on how effectively environmental hope is improved through hope-enhancing pro-environmental programs. Certified green schools in Israel, which comply to a national standard for holistic environmental education, have utilized hope-enhancing activities within their curriculum. This study investigates the relationships between Israeli students' enrollment in green schools, participation in environmental-hope-enhancing pro-environmental programs, environmental hope, PEB, and SWB.

The Israeli government has directed all schools to incorporate environmental education into their curriculum. Israeli schools have the option to be green school certified, which is a national standard involving specific requirements for environmental curriculum, community involvement, and school operational systems. Increasing student PEB is the main goal for green and non-green schools in Israel and abroad, and environmental hope has been linked to higher PEB. Environmental hope is characterized by an individuals' confidence to develop pathways to achieve environmental protection (pathway thinking), their motivation to implement those pathways (agency thinking), and their confidence in other stakeholder groups to contribute to environmental protection (social trust). Hope-enhancing pro-environmental programs are activities that provide students with firsthand experience of finding solutions to environmental problems.

This study took place in 46 schools across 17 cities in Israel. A total of 1,903 students in fifth and sixth grade participated, including 1,450 students (76%) from 30 green schools, and 453 students (24%) from 16 non-green schools. Students filled out five questionnaires aimed to evaluate their participation in hope-enhancing pro-environmental programs, levels of environmental hope, frequency of PEB, positivity ratio (the ratio of positive to negative emotions), and school satisfaction. Positivity ratio and school satisfaction were used as the metrics for SWB. Three stages of data analysis were completed. First, correlation analysis, then multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), and lastly path analysis were used to understand the relationships between the variables.

In both green and non-green schools, students' frequency of participation in hope-enhancing pro-environmental activities correlated with higher environmental hope, PEB, SWB, and school satisfaction. Students enrolled in green schools reported higher participation in hope-enhancing pro-environmental activities and higher PEB, along with slightly higher school satisfaction, in comparison to students enrolled in non-green schools. With deeper data analysis, the researchers found that school type alone did not strongly affect PEB and SWB, and that instead the higher frequency of hope-enhancing programs in green schools was linked to higher PEB and SWB. Similarly, the level of environmental hope was an important link between involvement in hope-enhancing programs and PEB and SWB. Analysis also identified a difference between genders—female students reported more school satisfaction and engagement in hope-enhancing programs than male students. The findings underscored the value of supporting hope in environmental education as it can influence EE focused outcomes like PEB, and outcomes commonly associated with other fields, like SWB that is associated with the field of positive psychology.

The researchers stated they would have preferred to include a similar number of green and non-green schools in their data collection, but due to resource and administrative limitations, a higher number of green schools was included. This study does not account for student activities outside of school, and how those activities impact environmental hope, PEB, and SWB. The questionnaire that evaluated student participation in hope-enhancing programs was short relative to the other questionnaires used in this study. The questionnaire also relied on self-reporting, which may have resulted in a less accurate representation of the students' engagement with such programs.

Due to the positive relationship between hope-enhancing pro-environmental programs, environmental hope, and PEB and SWB, the researchers recommended that both green and non-green schools focus on incorporating hope-enhancing activities into their educational programming. Incorporating hope-enhancing programs should be a formal requirement in the Israeli green school certification process. In situations where practitioners aspire to implement hope-enhancing programs, practitioners can emphasize how the programs not only increase PEB, but also the SWB of students. As this study demonstrated the importance of environmental hope, the researchers outline specific recommendations for promoting pathway thinking, agency thinking, and social trust components of environmental hope in educational settings. Most of their recommendations are focused on increasing the involvement of students in planning and evaluation processes as well as increasing the number of collaborative experiences to further social trust.