Academic and Social Benefits of Environmental Education

Environmental education emphasizes cooperative learning, critical thinking and discussion, hands-on activities, and real-world application. Students who study environmental education develop and practice skills like:

• Working in teams;
• Listening to and accepting diverse opinions;
• Solving real-world problems; 
• Taking the long-term view;
• Promoting actions that serve the larger good;
• Connecting with the community; and
• Making a difference in the world.

Students who fail in traditional school settings often succeed when the natural outdoor environment becomes their classroom. With environmental education, students who learn best by doing can be as successful as students who learn best through lectures and books. Hands-on experiences motivate students to learn and pay off in better test scores, better social skills, and increased parental involvement.  For more detail, explore the examples below:

Environmental education emphasizes cooperative learning (i.e., working in teams or with partners), critical thinking and discussion, hands-on activities, and a focus on action strategies with real-world applications. 

The Catalina Leadership program in Catalina, California, and the Adopt-a-Watershed Project in Hayfork, California, are two examples of environment-based education programs that develop leadership skills. In Catalina, fourth- to 12th-grade students gain leadership skills in a natural setting by exploring the complexity of the natural world. In Hayfork, students study watershed conservation to develop skills such as investigation and problem-solving.

Excerpted from: The North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) and The National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF). (2001). Using Environment-Based Education to Advance Learning Skills and Character Development. Washington, DC: NAAEE and NEEF.  

Using outdoor settings like wetlands, schoolyard habitats, or even national parks can infuse a sense of richness and relevance into a traditional school curriculum. California’s Heritage Project—a partnership between three school districts and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks—is one example.

Once a week, K–12 students meet with a park ranger to learn about park-related topics, such as forest fire cycles. Frequent park visits to gain hands-on experience are encouraged, creating stronger connections than the more typical once-yearly field trip provides.

The Heritage Project also offers EE classes that combine learning with recreation and exercise. For example, students study river ecology while kayaking, or equine caretaking while horseback riding.

These hands-on experiences motivate students to learn, and they pay off in better test scores, better social skills, and increased parental involvement. The program’s growth testifies to its success: nearly 75% of local students have become involved in the Heritage Project since it was founded, and teachers welcome the educational support from expert staff at participating parks, forests, refuges, museums, zoos, and nature centers.

Excerpted from: The National Education and Environment Partnership. (2002). Environmental Education and Educational Achievement: Promising Programs and Resources.  Washington, DC: National Environmental Education and Training Foundation.

Students at the School of Environmental Studies in Apple Valley, Minnesota, attend high school on the Minnesota Zoo ’s grounds, and have daily opportunities to hone their problem-solving skills. The “Zoo School” functions as an interdisciplinary learning laboratory that, in the words of Principal Dan Bodette, “… allows kids to do the kind of thinking that problem solving in the real world requires.”

The Zoo School’s environment-based approach to education lays the foundation for building students’ problem-solving skills. Environment-based education employs these key strategies for teaching creative and successful problem solving:

• introducing inquiry-based instructional activities with real-world applications,
• encouraging critical thinking about these activities,
• allowing individual choice about and engagement in the particular problem to be solved,
• helping students make connections between disciplines, and
• fostering independent and cooperative group learning.

For example, students at the Zoo School spend ten days each trimester investigating an independent study topic of their choice. Projects include anything from designing a Web page for the Jane Goodall Institute’s Roots and Shoots program to teaching local fourth graders about ecosystems.

Recently, two students profiled a local pond for a themed unit that explored the human/water relationship. They tested the pond water for phosphates, nitrates, and dissolved oxygen so that they could determine the pond’s ecological health and recommend improvements to city officials. The students were so involved in the project that they stayed at Kinko’s until 2 a.m. preparing the presentations they were delivering to city officials the next day—a not unfamiliar scenario in today’s 24/7 workaday world.

Excerpted from: The National Education and Environment Partnership. (2002). Environmental Education and Educational Achievement: Promising Programs and Resources.  Washington, DC: National Environmental Education Foundation.
The National Environmental Education Foundation. (2000, September). Environment-Based Education: Creating High PerformanceSchools and Students. Washington, DC: National Environmental Education Foundation.

Environmental educators often find that students who fail in traditional school settings can succeed when the natural outdoor environment becomes the students’ classroom. For example, students who learn best by doing can be as successful as students who learn best through lectures and books.

Jeremy, for example, is a high school senior whose writing skills were weak and who admitted that he often had trouble “tying facts together.” After Jeremy got involved in the environmental education program at his school, things changed. He had to write a 2400-word paper, complete an action project, and present his conclusions to a community panel. Not only was his paper “awesome,” according to this English teacher, but Jeremy went further. On his own initiative, he submitted an editorial based on his research to his state capital’s newspaper, and it was published.

Excerpted from: The National Environmental Education Foundation. (2000, September). Environment-Based Education: Creating High Performance Schools and Students. Washington, DC: National Environmental Education Foundation.
The North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) and The National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF). (2001). Using Environment-Based Education to Advance Learning Skills and Character Development. Washington, DC: NAAEE and NEEF.