Environmental Education: Ecological Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples in Western Siberia

Olga V Zakharova,Mariya V Bogdanova,Lyudmila G Suvorova,Irina Yuryevna Malykh,Anton Permyakov,Anton Viktorovich Zakharov

doi:10.3390/su13074040

Abstract

The goal of environmental education is to form a respectful attitude towards nature in the interests of sustainable development. This paper describes the environmental education program at an ethnic camp, which enables visitors to become familiar with the ecological wisdom of the indigenous peoples of Western Siberia, Russia. This program illustrates how indigenous communities can participate in the global agenda as actors suggesting their responses to global environmental challenges. This paper aims to assess the content, form, and effectiveness of the environmental education program at the ethnic camp. The content and form were assessed in compliance with the elements of modern environmental education. To measure the effectiveness of the education program, the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was used to study the students’ intentions to engage in sustainable behavior after visiting the ethnic camp. The research participants were 210 university students. This program is rich in content and form, including traditional activities and the ecological wisdom of the indigenous peoples. However, the findings demonstrated that the program had little effect on their sustainable environmental behavior. No significant differences were found between the results of the experimental and control groups. The study suggests ways to improve the education program.

Highlights

The impact of human activity on the natural environment and the increased population of the Earth have caused large-scale environmental problems in the last 70 years, such as the extinction of animal and plant species, climate change, environmental pollution, and the depletion of natural resources [1]
The experimental group comprised 70 people who took part in a one-and-a-half-hour environmental education program at the ethnic camp “Uvas Mir Khot” (Home of the Northern Peoples). 140 people made up the control group; they did not participate in the program
The study of the effectiveness of this program showed that the intention of the students of the experimental group to sustainable behavior is not higher in comparison with the control group

Summary

Introduction

The impact of human activity on the natural environment and the increased population of the Earth have caused large-scale environmental problems in the last 70 years, such as the extinction of animal and plant species, climate change, environmental pollution, and the depletion of natural resources [1]. Many scholars state that the cause of the negative changes in the environment is long-term anti-environmental unsustainable social, economic, and political practices of separate social groups. The consequences of these changes can be much more painful and complicated than they seem to be [2,3]. Some environmental issues, such as biological or geological, are deeply rooted in various dimensions of the political agenda, social behavior, cultural values, and mental health [4,5]. Unraveling the complex connections between nature and society, some scholars have emphasized the necessity to change the prevailing system of unsustainable practices and underlying relationships, social norms, and values in order to overcome the environmental crisis [6,7,8].

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion