Feelings of connectedness to nature are important predictors of environmental behaviors. While research has shown that childhood is an integral time for establishing connections with nature, there is some question as to the ideal age for children to experience outdoor education programs. There is also a lack of understanding surrounding the correlations between intensity of nature exposure and impacts on children. This study expands the age range of nature connectedness studies and examines the impact of an environmental education program on students with regards to participant age and duration of the experience.
601 students from primary and secondary school classes in Singapore took part in this study. Students ranged in age from 7 to 18 and were divided into age specific subgroups. Students in the experimental groups took part in an immersive environmental education program in the rainforest of Singapore for either one-day or five-day field trips. Students in the control groups took part in one-day or five-day indoor school lessons on conservation ecology. The experimental groups spent the entirety of their field trips outdoors, while the control groups examined similar material on paper and with short films indoors.
Data was collected via three surveys for each participant: one survey two weeks prior to the educational experience, one immediately after the experience, and a final survey six weeks after the experience. Surveys used P.W. Schultz' Inclusion of Nature in Self (INS) scale, in which participants rate their feelings of connectedness to nature. Analysis was conducted by comparing baseline INS scores for all three surveys through a one-way analysis of variance.
Results showed that participants felt significantly more connected to nature after participating in the one-day and five-day outdoor field trip experiences. Control groups did not show any changes in INS scores after participating in the indoor educational programs. The five-day field trip experiences were substantially more effective in promoting long-term nature connectedness than the one-day field trip experiences. There were also significant age-based differences between the subgroups. Overall, 7-9-year-old students participating in the five-day field trip experienced the most positive shift towards nature connectedness. Within the one-day field trip subsample, the 16-18-year-old subgroup demonstrated the highest shift towards nature connectedness.
This study is somewhat biased by the fact that one of the authors acted as an instructor for the educational experiences. Furthermore, the measuring instrument for the survey questions was only made of one item. A survey with only one item tends to make students more likely to answer according to what they think is socially desirable, compared to a survey with multiple items. But the method still demonstrated that outdoor nature programs have a significant impact on students compared to traditional classroom lessons. The authors conclude by recommending that children start taking part in immersive outdoor environmental education programs at a young age.
The Bottom Line
<p>As children become increasingly alienated from the outdoors, it is vital to create opportunities to connect children to nature. This study of indoor versus outdoor environmental education experiences demonstrates that outdoor environmental education programs make students feel more connected to nature. In addition, age and program duration are important influencing factors for determining levels of connectedness to nature. The results showed that young children (ages 7-9) were more impacted by immersive outdoor experiences than older children and that five-day field trips in nature had more positive impacts than one-day trips. The authors recommend exposure to outdoor environmental education programs for all children, but this recommendation is especially important for young children.</p>
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