Can eco-schools improve elementary school students’ environmental literacy levels?

The ultimate goal of environmental education is to educate children as environmentally literate citizens who can actively participate in solving environmental problems (Roth, 1996; Rothkrug & Olson, 1991; Wilke, 1995). Within the debate about environmental education, environmental educators discuss about the concept of environmental literacy and the ways to educate environmentally literate children. From its birth, the term environmental literacy has received attention of many educational researchers and environmental scientists. Even though the term has been discussed with researchers, there is no generally agreed definition of it. The earliest definition of environmental literacy was made by Roth in 1968. Roth defined environmentally literate person as “someone who possesses the basic skills, understandings and feelings for man-environment relationship” (p. 2). According to Roth an environmentally literate person understands “the interrelationships between natural and social systems”, “the unity of humankind with nature”, “how technology influences environmental decision making” and “learning about the environment is a life-long endeavor” (p. 2). Agreed with Roth, many educators state that environmentally literate person recognizes the connections between science, technology, society and the environment (Bybee & DeBoer, 1994; Palmer, 2003). Another definition of environmental literacy was made by Hungerford and Peyton (1997). They defined environmental literacy as a concept which is “reflected by human beings who have knowledge of and the ability to communicate the need for environmental action strategies, who have the ability to use these skills inherent in environmental action strategies, and who are willing to use action strategies in an effort to remediate environmental issues” (p.4). Although there are discrepancies on the definition and components of environmental literacy, researchers agree that the solution to environmental problems is to develop an environmentally literate society behaving in more environmentally responsible ways (Roth, 1996; Rothrug & Olson, 1991; Wilke, 1995). A behavior is considered to be an environmentally responsible one when “the actions of an individual or group advocate the sustainable or diminished use of natural resources” (Sivek & Hungerford, 1990, as cited in Vaske & Kobrin, 2001, p.16).

Developing an environmentally literate society is possible through effective environmental education. As places of learning, schools have a special role to play; they can help students to understand our impacts on the planet; and become places where sustainable living and working is demonstrated to young people and the community. However, current educational practices are not effective to improve students’ environmental literacy (Cutter, 2002; Daudi, 2008, Michael, Stamou & Stamau, 2007, Orr, 1992). Hungerfold and Volk (1990, p.437) noted that “environmental educators typically assume that if they simply impart knowledge to students, responsible action will follow”. However, gaining ‘responsible environmental behavior’ is more than having scientific knowledge about environmental issues. We have to provide effective instructional practices to develop environmentally responsible behaviors and the required learning environment should give students the chance of studying out of the classes, observing the nature, practicing and testing the learned issues about the environment. With this respect an international award program, named as eco-school, emerged to improve students’ environmental literacy. Eco-school program was developed by Foundation of Environmental Education (FEE) as a means of delivering Agenda21 commitments (http://www.fee-international.org). The major aim of this program is to prepare children for sustainable living and to show that sustainable living is about finding solutions to the problems we confront and improving the people’s quality of life without destroying the environment. This program combines learning and action, thus providing an effective method to change behavior shift. By the rise of the eco-school program, it gained an increased attention throughout the world and today, 27,000 schools from 44 countries including Turkey are enrolled to the program. Eco-schools program is administered in Turkey by Turkish Foundation for Environmental Education since 1995. Hundreds of schools; kindergartens, primary, elementary and secondary schools; enrolled to the project all over the country.

Eco-school program provides a framework including seven steps to guide schools on their sustainable journey (http://www.eco-schools.org.uk). The program starts with forming an eco-committee (http://www.fee-international.org). In this step, the school establishes an eco-school committee that includes teachers, students, parents, staff and if it is possible other stakeholders in the local community. The major roles of eco-committee are to inform whole school about the program, to lead in carrying the environmental review and the action plan and to provide a link between students, teachers, administrators and the whole school community. The second step in eco-school program is conducting an environmental review. In this step, eco-teams provide information on the school’s impact on the environment. Schools can address environmental issues such as litter, waste minimization, energy, health and school grounds. As a result of the environmental review, a list of actions is drawn out. During the third step, forming an action plan, members of the eco-teams and whole school community are assigned to accomplish the targets in the action plan. Through the process, eco-teams should monitor their actions and evaluate their progress. Coordinator teachers are advised to encourage students to take an active role during monitoring and evaluation. By this way students will have a greater sense of ownership towards the program. The next step in eco-school program is the curriculum work. Teachers are expected to make an effort for integrating environmental issues throughout the curriculum and different areas of study such as mathematics, language, religion and social sciences. Informing and involving the whole school and wider community is the sixth step of eco-school program. The program aims to raise the environmental awareness of the whole school and wider community. For this reason, activities that provide the involvement of the wider community are advised. Last step in eco-school program is producing the eco-code. Eco-code is a mission statement demonstrating the school’s commitment to improving its environmental performance. It is advised to produce the eco-codes with students and display on eco-school board, classrooms, staff rooms and corridors. At the end of the process, schools are evaluated in developing students’ awareness and in changing their behavior in respect of environment. If the school is found to be successful, it is labeled as eco-school.

Eco-schools program is a promising approach to improve students’ environmental literacy. Although the program is implemented in a wide area, there are not enough research studies questioning the effectiveness of eco-school applications. In one of the research study, Aktepe and Girgin (2009) compared 8th grade students attending eco-schools with students attending public school with respect to their environmental consciousness and environmental knowledge. The research has been applied to 178 primary school students and the results of the study showed that while eco-school students are more conscious in practice, traditional school students are more successful in theoretical area.

In another research study, Krnel and Naglic (2009) compared eco-school students and public school students with respect to their environmental knowledge and awareness. Besides, researchers also investigated if there are any differences between two groups with respect to their environmentally responsible behaviors. Statistical comparisons showed that eco-school students’ environmental knowledge level is slightly higher than students’ attending public school. On the other hand, results also showed that, there are no statistically significant differences between groups with respect to their environmental awareness and environmentally responsible behaviors.

In their study, Bajd and Leščanec (2011) compared ecological awareness and environmental responsibility of students involved in the Eco-School Project with those of pupils involved in Healthy School Project. Based on the results of the study the researchers concluded that although students at both schools displayed moderately good ecological awareness and environmental responsibility, students attending eco-schools show higher ecological awareness and environmentally responsibility than students attending healthy schools.

Previous research studies showed that eco-schools are effective on improving students’ environmental knowledge and awareness. However, as the readers of this study will realize, related literature consists of very few studies with a limited sample sizes. For this reason, research studies questioning effectiveness of eco-schools on different variables are needed. This study aims to fill this gap in the literature. With this respect, the study aimed to determine the effectiveness of eco-school application on elementary school students’ environmental literacy levels. Based on this purpose, the main problem of this study is: “What is the effect of eco-school applications on the improvement of elementary school students’ environmental literacy compared to traditional school applications?” With this main problem the study also focuses on following sub-problems:

Is there a significant mean difference between the effects of eco-school application and traditional school application on elementary school students’ knowledge about environment?
Is there a significant mean difference between the effects of eco-school application and traditional school application on elementary school students’ attitudes toward environment?
Is there a significant mean difference between the effects of eco-school application and traditional school application on elementary school students’ environmental uses?
Is there a significant mean difference between the effects of eco-school application and traditional school application on elementary school students’ environmental concerns?