Environmental Education in Côte d'Ivoire/West Africa: Extra-Curricular Primary School Teaching Shows Positive Impact on Environmental Knowledge and Attitudes
- 22 May 2013
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis Ltd in International Journal of Science Education, Part B
- Vol. 4 (3), 240-259
- https://doi.org/10.1080/21548455.2013.803632
Abstract
This paper surveys the consequences of pupils' participation in the extra-curricular environmental education (EE) programme Club P.A.N. (Peoples, Animals and Nature) by monitoring changes in their respective knowledge as well as in their environmental attitudes. The programme was conducted in Côte d'Ivoire in West Africa with the help of the local teacher's organization Cellule des Projets Environnementaux (CPE). We used multivariate analysis of data collected during two years of the programme (n = 1,244 participants), in nine villages around the Taï National Park, to test if this EE programme could lead to (1) knowledge gain and (2) attitude change, and the influences of (3) grade, sex and prior knowledge. Participation significantly increased environmental knowledge and positively influenced attitudes towards nature. Boys gained more knowledge and changed attitudes more than girls and pupils of the sixth grade profited more from the programme on both measures than the younger pupils of the fifth grade. We discuss how these results influence the programme and how further research should be emphasized.Keywords
This publication has 39 references indexed in Scilit:
- Children Prioritize Virtual Exotic Biodiversity over Local BiodiversityPLOS ONE, 2011
- The Effect of Flemish Eco‐Schools on Student Environmental Knowledge, Attitudes, and AffectInternational Journal of Science Education, 2010
- Analyzing Linguistic DataPublished by Cambridge University Press (CUP) ,2008
- Twenty years after Hines, Hungerford, and Tomera: A new meta-analysis of psycho-social determinants of pro-environmental behaviourJournal of Environmental Psychology, 2007
- Kenyan Children's Ideas about Parks and WildlifeEnvironmental Education Research, 2002
- The Influence of Short-Term Outdoor Ecology Education on Long-Term Variables of Environmental PerspectiveThe Journal of Environmental Education, 1998
- 1991 International Assessment of Educational Progress in Mathematics and Sciences: The gender differences perspective.Journal of Educational Psychology, 1996
- The theory of planned behaviorOrganizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 1991
- Ecological Worldview and Environmental Knowledge: The “New Environmental Paradigm”The Journal of Environmental Education, 1986
- Organizer, general background, and antecedent learning variables in sequential verbal learning.Journal of Educational Psychology, 1962