Abstract
In times of environmental crisis, Education for Environmental Citizenship (EEC) is argued to be of great significance in the development of secondary education students’ pro-environmentalism as environmental citizens. However, given that EEC is still emerging, there is a lack of empirical foundation on how environmental citizenship can be approached in a pedagogically sound way; as a result, empirical documented interventions in secondary education are also limited. This paper presents a case study from Cyprus, which evaluates the impact of a novel learning intervention grounded in the EEC pedagogical approach, taking into consideration the potential effect of students’ gender as well as of their past/present EC actions. The participants were fifty students (n = 50) in secondary biology education who attended the learning intervention; the students comprised 29 girls (58%) and 21 boys (42%), from two intact classrooms. Data were collected with the Environmental Citizenship Questionnaire (ECQ), which was administered before (pre-) and after (post-) the learning intervention, and were analyzed using a combination of non-parametric statistical analyses (Wilcoxon signed-rank test, Mann–Whitney U test, Spearman’s Correlation and cluster analysis). Our findings indicated that there was a statistically significant increase in the students’ EC learning gains, both EC competences and EC future actions, by the end of the intervention. However, our findings also indicated that the impact of the learning intervention was related significantly to the students’ gender as well as to their past/present EC actions, as these were reported by the students prior the intervention. Overall, our findings provide empirical substantiation of the contribution of the EEC pedagogical approach to the development of secondary students’ EC. At the same time, our study also pointed out the critical roles of gender and past/present EC actions in students’ learning gains.
Highlights
Introduction published maps and institutional affilEnvironmental citizenship (EC) reframes the relationship between humans and nature.It emphasizes that everyone should make responsible decisions about complex socioecological issues and take action, individually as well as collectively, to minimize their ecological impact on the Earth, contributing to environmental conservation [1,2].Environmental citizenship has gained considerable traction in current times, due to the ever-increasing environmental crisis, which requires well-prepared environmental citizens who are able to undertake action to achieve sustainability [3]
This paper presents a case study from Cyprus that evaluates a novel learning intervention grounded in the Environmental Citizenship (EEC) pedagogical approach and seeks to promote 10th graders’
What is of critical importance, though, is the large effect size, which goes beyond the statistical impact and signifies that the impact of the learning intervention is meaningful and may have practical implications for researchers, teachers and students who adopt educational interventions underpinned by the EEC pedagogical approach [54]
Summary
Introduction published maps and institutional affilEnvironmental citizenship (EC) reframes the relationship between humans and nature.It emphasizes that everyone should make responsible decisions about complex socioecological issues and take action, individually as well as collectively, to minimize their ecological impact on the Earth, contributing to environmental conservation [1,2].Environmental citizenship has gained considerable traction in current times, due to the ever-increasing environmental crisis, which requires well-prepared environmental citizens who are able to undertake action to achieve sustainability [3]. Environmental citizenship (EC) reframes the relationship between humans and nature. It emphasizes that everyone should make responsible decisions about complex socioecological issues and take action, individually as well as collectively, to minimize their ecological impact on the Earth, contributing to environmental conservation [1,2]. Environmental citizenship has gained considerable traction in current times, due to the ever-increasing environmental crisis, which requires well-prepared environmental citizens who are able to undertake action to achieve sustainability [3]. Environmental citizenship has, started to emerge as a crucial construct in education; secondary education students comprise a crucial target group, due to their anticipated role as prospective citizens.
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