Ecological Education Project - continuation

Research Stream 1: Learning-Environment Tool Creation

The learning-environment tool-creation element of our research is classroom-based, and has a strong evaluation component to it in terms of its aim to describe and diagnose learning environments associated with a broad range of pedagogical strategies. Previous research on psychosocial learning environments has been found to be both descriptive of classroom contexts and predictive of student learning (Fraser, 1998). To further this line of inquiry in conjunction with the PDP students, as a group we are developing a range of questionnaires and other innovative research methods to statistically analyze and qualitatively describe the eco-literacy-oriented learning environments produced by the student-teachers. By including data from a wide range of different individualized teaching environments from the PDP students in their practicum, we will not only create powerful diagnostic tools for the benefit of the teachers and students in their classrooms, but the data set will also provide us with the opportunity to investigate and describe relationships between the learning environment, student attitudes, and student achievement, all couched in the context of ecological education.

Specifically, PDP students have been invited to design, develop and implement their own learning environment research plan, allowing them to create tools for themselves with which to better understand the ways their students are learning in their classrooms. We have had three separate working sessions with the PDP students since the beginning of the year in order to introduce the concepts, philosophies and methodologies associated with research tool development. The students have not yet created their own learning-environment tools, but as small groups in our working sessions they have generated concept-maps of the work involved, as well as given presentations on the factors that they believe will be the most important to assess. We are currently collecting artifacts (written and graphical work completed by the PDP students), doing participant observation with the PDP students, and will be conducting interviews and focus groups with them (and school administrators) soon. This entire approach will be used to augment evaluation strategies used in other nodes, and throughout the larger program of research.

Research Stream 2: Ethnography of Ecological Education Programs

This ethnography is a field-based stream, focusing on the generation of in-depth understanding of the cultural tools used by the different educational programs in our study (the PDP program and the two elementary schools) in order to gain legitimacy for their emphasis on the environment. Although this stream uses much of the same data as the previous one, the nature of the research is different in that we hope to tell the story of these programs so as to learn how this kind of education can be propagated.

Having only just begun our in-depth data collection strategy for the ethnography, we are currently using only the data gathered from the learning-environment tool creation stream. As the PDP students begin to spend more time in their schools, however, we will increasingly be doing focus groups and interviews with the students, teachers and administrators, and collecting more artifacts (memos, meeting minutes, formal and informal communications, etc.), student reflections, and we will be conducting much more participant observation. We hope to create a story-map showing how ecological education is being done in one part of Canada, with the goal of sharing this knowledge with others who see a need for the development of this form of learning.

References

• Fraser, B. J. (1998). Science Learning Environments: Assessments, Effects and Determinants. In B. J. Fraser & K.G. Tobin (Eds.), International Handbook of Science Education. (pp. 527-564). Dordrecht, NL: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
• Orr, D. (1992). Ecological literacy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.