Sellmann, Daniela, & Bogner, Franz Xaver. (2013). Climate change education: quantitatively assessing the impact of a botanical garden as an informal learning environment. Environmental Education Research, 19, 415-429.
Teachers tried a different tact on a tenth graders' one-day field trip to a botanical garden to learn about climate change: they let the children lead and were there to support them.
The students who participated consistently outperformed their nonparticipating peers in short and long-term knowledge retention. Their cognitive achievement was stable six weeks after the program. Both the teachers and researchers agreed that the student-centered approach and the engaging teaching strategies of the program enabled students to retain the information better than their peers. The teachers and researchers also credit the teaching style with enabling students to think critically and independently, as well as interact with their peers.