Event Title

Nurturing Environmental Literacy: Higher Education and the Environmental Crisis

Presenter Information

Molly Nash, Colby CollegeFollow

Location

Parker-Reed, SSWAC

Start Date

30-4-2015 11:00 AM

End Date

30-4-2015 1:55 PM

Project Type

Poster

Description

The environmental crisis will affect all people, career paths, and academic disciplines. Acknowledging this, does higher education have an obligation to educate all students for environmental literacy (EL)? This study reviews literature on how to effectively assess and implement EL initiatives and highlights how other colleges successfully nurture EL in all students. This study also surveys Colby students to understand the levels of EL on campus and to highlight specific programming or curriculum that leads to high EL levels in students. Findings include significantly different EL scores between environmental studies student respondents and respondents in all other disciplines. Additionally, students who identified as not very environmentally aware in high school demonstrated a significantly higher EL score at Colby only if they studied environmental studies. A combination of findings from the literature and the survey help inform suggestions this research makes for Colby College moving forward.

Sponsoring Department

Colby College. Education Program

CLAS Field of Study

Interdisciplinary Studies

Event Website

http://www.colby.edu/clas

ID

1613

Share

COinS
 
Apr 30th, 11:00 AM Apr 30th, 1:55 PM

Nurturing Environmental Literacy: Higher Education and the Environmental Crisis

Parker-Reed, SSWAC

The environmental crisis will affect all people, career paths, and academic disciplines. Acknowledging this, does higher education have an obligation to educate all students for environmental literacy (EL)? This study reviews literature on how to effectively assess and implement EL initiatives and highlights how other colleges successfully nurture EL in all students. This study also surveys Colby students to understand the levels of EL on campus and to highlight specific programming or curriculum that leads to high EL levels in students. Findings include significantly different EL scores between environmental studies student respondents and respondents in all other disciplines. Additionally, students who identified as not very environmentally aware in high school demonstrated a significantly higher EL score at Colby only if they studied environmental studies. A combination of findings from the literature and the survey help inform suggestions this research makes for Colby College moving forward.

https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/clas/2015/program/122