Many environmental education programmes already run for a term or more, so the live question for practitioners is rarely whether to start one, but whether a particular addition earns the time it takes. This study tested exactly that, comparing an established 15-week programme run with and without a photography-and-discussion component, alongside young people who took part in neither. Because the comparison is between two versions of the same programme, it offers an unusually clean read on what one creative element contributes.
Why the researchers did this study.
The authors note that access to nature and to environmental education (EE) in the United States is unevenly distributed, with low-income and non-White children generally having less access to green space than higher-income or White peers. They argue that EE has also been criticised for offering few culturally relevant opportunities to urban and non-White communities. Against this backdrop, they set out to test whether Photovoice — a participatory method in which participants photograph a topic and then discuss their images in a group — could enhance what young people take from an EE programme.
How the study was done.
The study took place over the Fall 2019 semester (August–December) in seven St. Louis Public School District schools in Missouri, USA, all of which had student bodies where 95% or more qualified for free or reduced-price school meals. A non-profit organisation delivered a 15-week EE programme of weekly in-class lessons plus monthly outdoor field trips. A total of 335 students aged 9–15 took part: 38 in the Photovoice group (a single class), 232 in the traditional EE group, and 65 in a control group that received no intervention. Assignment was non-random, made by school administrators and teachers at classroom level. All participants completed a 22-item questionnaire before and after the programme. This generated a "STEM-capacity" score (a self-report measure combining items on leadership, teamwork, and the perceived importance and accessibility of science, scored 0–12) and an environmental awareness measure based on whether a young person could name an environmental issue. Photovoice focus group transcripts were analysed thematically.
What the study found.
1. The authors identified three ways participants understood "environment": the social environment (family, friends, teachers, and being outdoors with others), the natural environment (landscapes, skies, plants, animals), and the built environment (parks, backyards, schools, roads). Agreement between independent coders ranged from moderate to strong.
2. Young people expressed both positive and negative sentiments. Positive feelings centred on calm, colour, scenery, and time with others. Negative feelings centred on restricted or too-small spaces, seasonal change, and traffic and noise.
3. STEM-capacity scores rose significantly in both intervention groups (Photovoice 6.8 to 10.8; traditional 7.3 to 10.3), while the control group's scores fell significantly (6.5 to 4.4). The Photovoice group's post-programme score was significantly higher than the traditional group's.
4. Environmental awareness rose in both intervention groups (Photovoice 28.9% to 100%; traditional 9.5% to 95.7%) and did not change significantly in the control group. The difference between the two intervention groups afterwards was not statistically significant.
What this means for practice.
The findings indicate that a Photovoice component can be layered onto an existing programme using inexpensive disposable cameras and one lesson of instruction, without replacing curriculum content. The three perception subthemes suggest that programmes assuming "environment" means wilderness may be starting somewhere different from where urban young people already are — a starting point educators can elicit directly through photographs. The authors report that the delivering organisation revised its curriculum in response to what the photographs revealed, which is a practical model for using participant images as programme feedback rather than only as an activity.
The Bottom Line
This mixed-methods study, conducted with 335 low-income youth aged 9–15 in public schools in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, compared three groups: one receiving a 15-week environmental education programme that included a Photovoice activity (participants take photographs on a given topic, then discuss them in small focus groups), one receiving the same programme without Photovoice, and a non-participating control group. The authors found that both intervention groups showed significant gains in self-reported STEM-capacity and in the ability to name an environmental issue, while the control group declined on the first measure and did not change on the second. Youth in the Photovoice group scored significantly higher on STEM-capacity afterwards than those in the programme without it. The study suggests that adding a low-cost, camera-based reflective activity to an existing programme may strengthen learning outcomes, though the Photovoice group was small (38 youth) and not randomly assigned.