Turning Environmental Knowledge into Environmental Action

Knowledge, attitudes, and behavior form the trifecta of environmental education (EE) outcomes, yet research repeatedly demonstrates that the three are not linear and do not necessarily lead to one another. In some situations, teaching-and-learning approaches, such as community-engaged and/or place-based experiences, allow students to align knowledge and attitudes in a way that their behavior with community groups provides an avenue to practice and deepen the related behaviors.

This article's authors taught an undergraduate course at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire (UWEC). In the course, assignments helped translate students' environmental knowledge into action-oriented community outreach projects that educated wider audiences. The authors co-taught the course, focusing the curriculum on sustainability and the environment. The class had 18 UWEC students, and their primary project was to devise a “Pedal and Paddle Pollution Tour” of the Lower Chippewa River State Natural Area (LCRSNA), a main natural feature of the campus and surrounding city. According to the authors, the students came from a wide array of disciplinary backgrounds and worked either individually or in groups to develop the tours.

In forming their projects, students used a variety of media and pedagogical approaches, which ultimately resulted in two tour “guide” formats. The first was a physical map of the Lower Chippewa for people seeking a self-guided approach to biking, hiking, and canoeing along the river. The second was a digital guide that included a series of short films about pollution and related environmental issues.

The course instructors aimed for students to achieve three main learning goals en route to their final project deliverables, which the authors identified as critical for both teaching and actively engaging in sustainability. Those learning objectives included: (1) developing a sense of place in a setting familiar to students, in order to foster stewardship behaviors in places students might consider their own; (2) learning to identify and subsequently communicate scientifically valid environmental information; and (3) connecting with local stewardship agencies to effectively communicate their tour programs and inspire place-based environmental action. To track the progress of these learning objectives, the instructors collected survey data from students at the start and end of the course.

The authors noted that attachment to place and understanding of local environments were low across the majority of students at the beginning of the semester, particularly with respect to water quality and pollution. Therefore, the instructors aimed to help students feel an emotional connection to the Lower Chippewa River, with the goal of spurring environmental stewardship of the water motivated by a place attachment. To achieve this goal, instructors engaged students with the river through a canoe trip at the beginning of the semester. On this trip, students learned about the interactions between the river's ecosystem and surrounding human systems, and saw firsthand some of the effects of pollution on the Lower Chippewa.

To supplement and complement students' place-based learning and sense of place in Eau Claire's natural environment, the class focused on information literacy, the second learning objective. Students dove into the peer- reviewed scientific literature on pollution, environmental issues, and water quality. According to the authors, most students had little information literacy at the start of the course, which translated directly into a lack of focus on scientific validity when pitching ideas for their Pedal and Paddle Tours. Most of the undergraduates were more likely to uncritically accept and use information found on the Internet than consult peer-reviewed scientific evidence to support their river-pollution messages. As a result, the instructors required a greater use of peer-reviewed scientific literature throughout the course. By the project's end, the instructors noticed a large drop in students' citations of government information (many of the remaining citations were legitimate) and commercial websites, which the authors claim indicates strong gains in environmental and information literacy.

Community partnerships, the third major learning objective, helped students engage with a real-world environmental-stewardship example. The pre-course surveys revealed that all 18 students wanted to participate in environmental activism and/or stewardship, but that none actually had done so prior to the project. The authors suggest that this may have been a result of students not knowing how to engage with local issues or groups. By connecting students with local stewardship groups and initiatives, the instructors provided opportunities for the undergraduates to follow through on their intentions to act and learn about real-time, local pollution concerns. These partnerships, according to the authors, enabled a clear sense of civic agency among students, as indicated by anonymous self-reflection reports at the end of the term.

The findings from this case report indicate that students achieved, to varying degrees, each of the instructors' three main learning objectives. These achievements occurred despite students' disparate baseline knowledge about water pollution. Ultimately, the authors suggest that the experiential course design successfully developed students' sense of place, enhanced environmental information literacy, and engaged the students in community partnerships. By achieving those goals, the course provided students with the knowledge needed to create pollution awareness programs, as well as the platform to implement the programs on a local level.