ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION AS TEACHING MARKED BY ACTIVITY

Important to have interesting experiences and practical activities
Many ways of collecting and studying information
How can students work on the conflict of interests in a practical way?
Student preparation of the activities
Student benefits from the activities
Evaluation themes

Important to have interesting experiences and practical activities

In a questionnaire made in connection with the MUVIN project the students were asked what had been the most important thing in their studies (Breiting et al 1999). Those students who answered, almost 4 out of ten said that what had meant most to them was that the lessons were interesting because of the excursions outside the classroom and the meetings with various resource people.

In the answers from questionnaires made for the teachers it was also clear that this aspect was regarded as a significant quality of their teaching. You might say that working on environmental problems provides a good opportunity to leave the classroom and look into conditions oneself.
 

Many ways of collecting and studying information

In one project undertaken by a class of 12 year olds dealing with the plans of building a motorway across the Gudenå river valley the students had worked on the reports and recommendations from the Roads Commission and other official authorities, and also read and studied various letters to the editor in the local newspapers. They also invited into the classroom local politicians and citizens from the affected area who had different opinions on the issue and asked them questions and discussed with them.

They had already been on several trips to the area, which would be affected by the plans, as well as made practical surveys such as a traffic count and a rather large questionnaire for the people living in the area.

Afterwards they made man size profile visuals of the typical “yes, no, and don’t know people”. This visual was made as a result of the findings and hung up in the classroom.
Speech balloons and texts were glued onto the stomachs of the profiles illustrating the arguments and points of view as well as other relevant conditions connected with the issue.

There is no doubt that the various approaches to the issue resulted in the students finding the following points which show that they have achieved a differentiated view of the issue, among other things, by having shown it from many different angles and as expressed in the varied activities. The teacher says (Hedegaard, 1996):

“The questionnaire was personally delivered by the students at the appropriate addresses with an accompanying brief explanation. That was why there was a high response rate. The responses were put through a computer and our data could be visualised in an impressive layout. What were interesting were what conclusions the students had reached from the material. Could it throw light on what we wanted to know? To the students’ great surprise they could see a pattern. For instance, there was a distinct difference of opinion between men and women regarding the necessity of a motorway. Almost 75% of the men were for and approximately 60% of the women against. There were also many interesting comments such as ’how come men who work indoors want a motorway?’. Some students wondered why women with children were mostly against building a motorway. The students realised that ’something’ governs our attitudes and interests. They actually reached a sociological understanding that objectivity does not exist and that there is no wrong or right attitude beforehand. They learned that ’something’ ’decides’ attitudes”
 

How can students work on the conflict of interests in a practical way?

Even though the concept of conflicting interests is relatively abstract and is not easy to use in practical teaching the MUVIN project and other development programmes have shown that there are many ways of working which can give good results, both as regards pinning down the concept as well as continuing with it. (e.g. Hedegaard, 1996)

Field trips


Questionnaires


Visits by and/or interviews with provocative adults with forceful views


Role play/drama


Panel debates


When students work in a practical way it has had the result that difficult problems become more down to earth to them. It was easier for the students to understand the conflict approach because attitudes and opinions could be connected with people of flesh and blood they themselves have met and talked to.

One of the teachers in the MUVIN project says about a 12 year old group of students who interviewed a resource person in order to get insight into the conflict approach, rather than just discussing it with the teacher (Hedegaard, 1996):

’What was difficult for the students was changing their point of view. Once they had a fixed point of view based on their feelings, they became very good at reflecting and finding good arguments for what they felt. There was obvious opposition time and time again against seeing things from more than one point of view. They experienced me as a person who was never satisfied. Interviews with a stranger turned out to be the way out of the cull de sac. Suddenly the situation became authentic, because the people they met did not demand allroundedness. They could openly stand up for what they believed and argue for, which they did.”
 

Student preparation of the activities

An important aspect of Environmental education is that the students learn to be independent in their search, choice and work on the information they can get by getting into touch with people outside school or by visiting factories, institutions etc. Apart from such activities having value in themselves for finding material for the issue, this type of contact and visit often gives a refreshing touch to school work.

Experience has shown, however, that it can be difficult for the students to get the full benefit from such activities. There are a number of reasons for this.

Sometimes the content of the visit is not sufficiently well prepared so the point of the visit is not clear to the students, or the questions have not been thoroughly discussed. In such cases it is difficult for them to connect the information they get with the work on their problem.

The weakness in the preparation can be that they have not agreed as to who is to ask the questions and be the leading person, or how the questions are to be formulated, or who is to take notes etc. In other cases there may be technical problems with the tape recorder, or extra tapes have been forgotten, or the battery is flat.

Generally, people outside school can be good sources of information for the students. Especially people with particularly strong points of view can be provocating and stimulating for the students. Though it should be clear to the teacher that some adult resource persons are simply hopeless with children, for instance, if they are the types that completely loses them intellectually. It has therefore proved good policy for either the teacher or the students to visit the resource person before inviting them into the classroom, so what is expected of each other is well known beforehand. Finally, of course, the appointment has to be planned as regards both time and place.

In connection with the use of questionnaires and interviews it is especially important that they have been tested on people from outside school before they are used. It has often been the case that if questions are not formulated correctly (e.g. are ambiguous), the responses can be so difficult to work on afterwards that nothing constructive is gained from them. This type of error should be weeded out before the final scheme is used. The problem becomes more acute when computers are used for the analysis.

Remember to teach the children the art of keeping quiet and listening instead of concentrating on the next question to be asked, and also to be polite. One teacher says (Mogensen, 1997)

“It can sometimes be pretty embarrassing when the kids are working outside school…to use an old expression, they haven’t got the respect they ought to have towards seriously working adults…if the kids don’t have this, things don’t look too good”

When younger children are to visit, for instance, a sewage treatment works, it has proved a good idea before the visit to let them draw or describe in a few sentences what they expect to experience (Breiting, 1997). The point of this exercise is to sharpen their senses and awareness on the outing.
 

Student benefits from the activities

Frequently, student information and experience is unstructured and episodic. Especially younger children have difficulty in controlling the impressions and experiences they have been exposed to. Therefore the teacher together with the students should try to generalise the information by helping them to put words and concepts to what they have experienced: e.g. ’What have you discovered, and how is this related to your problem?’  It is also possible to conclude with the help of a graph or a text.

It has also proved useful to make visuals of what they have been working on. This seems to apply not only to younger children but also to the older ones. In the former example from MUVIN concerning a fish farm and angling, the teacher let the students make large scale models of the fish farm of papier mache and in the playground sandbox, so the students could revise and repeat the construction of a fish farm and how the water flow worked.

What is decisive is that the students can attach their visual products to the problem they are working on. It can often be a good idea to compare the various results different groups have produced when working on the same theme.

The teacher should encourage the students to be critical of the information they have received even though they may have had difficulty in questioning the statements made by the friendly factory owner who gave them a soft drink and a piece of cake.
 

Evaluation themes

Concerning the evaluation of the activity aspect of environmental education the following themes may be relevant:

  • Have the students had the opportunity to investigate the problem in different modes of activity –outings, interviews etc?