For this study, researchers systematically reviewed 20 years of peer-reviewed literature to understand what outcomes environmental education programs actually measure and achieve with K–12 students. Starting with over 2,000 articles, they narrowed their analysis to 119 high-quality empirical studies that included measurable student outcomes from environmental education interventions across 33 countries.
Key Findings
Remarkable Success Rates: Environmental education programs showed overwhelmingly positive results across all outcome types. Studies reported positive findings in 94% of cases measuring environmental outcomes and 95% of those examining non-environmental benefits like academic achievement and civic engagement.
Diverse Outcomes Beyond the Environment: While most programs (91%) measured traditional environmental outcomes like knowledge and attitudes, researchers identified 121 unique outcomes spanning six domains: knowledge, dispositions, competencies, behavior, personal characteristics, and multi-domain outcomes. Programs successfully fostered academic skills like critical thinking and systems thinking, social competencies, and personal development.
Research Design Patterns: The field heavily favors quasi-experimental designs (78% of studies) using structured instruments like surveys and tests (82% of studies). Only 29% included follow-up measures beyond immediate post-program assessment, with most delayed measurements occurring within six months.
Knowledge and Attitudes Dominate: Studies most frequently measured knowledge (68% of articles) and dispositions like attitudes and interests (61%), while competencies (26%) and actual behaviors (20%) received less attention. This suggests a "streetlight effect"—researchers may be measuring what's easiest to assess rather than what's most important.
Implications for Environmental Educators
Measurement Challenges: The field faces a fundamental tension between environmental education's holistic, process-oriented nature and demands for measurable outcomes. While programs clearly produce multiple benefits, current research methods may not capture the full richness of environmental education experiences.
Need for Longitudinal Studies: With only two studies following students longer than one year, the field lacks understanding of environmental education's lasting impacts. Given that environmental literacy develops over time, longer-term studies are essential.
Behavioral Outcomes Understudied: Despite environmental education's ultimate goal of fostering environmentally responsible behavior, only 20% of studies measured actual behaviors. This represents a critical gap between program intentions and research focus.
Methodological Opportunities: While quasi-experimental designs dominate, the 22% of studies using alternative approaches like ethnography and action research suggest promising directions for capturing environmental education's complexity.
Moving Forward
This review validates environmental education's value while highlighting important research needs. The consistently positive findings across diverse outcomes provide strong evidence for environmental education's effectiveness in formal and informal settings. However, the field needs more sophisticated approaches to measuring behavioral change, longer-term follow-up studies, and research methods that better capture the transformative, relationship-building aspects of environmental education.
The review also suggests that environmental education's strength may lie in its versatility—its ability to simultaneously address environmental literacy, academic achievement, and social-emotional learning. This positions environmental education as a valuable educational approach that extends well beyond traditional environmental outcomes.
For practitioners, these findings provide robust evidence that environmental education programs work across multiple domains. For researchers, the review identifies critical gaps in behavioural measurement and long-term assessment while calling for more diverse methodological approaches that honour environmental education's holistic nature.
The Bottom Line
This comprehensive review of 119 peer-reviewed studies from 1994–2013 reveals that environmental education programs consistently produce positive outcomes for K–12 students across multiple domains—not just environmental knowledge and attitudes, but also academic achievement, critical thinking, and social skills. However, the field relies heavily on measuring easily quantifiable outcomes like knowledge and attitudes, while behaviors and competencies remain understudied despite being central to environmental education's goals.