The effect of participation in an environmental action program on empowerment, interest and problem-solving skills of inner city students.

Abstract

This study evaluated an environmental education program that involved students in actually working on environmental problems. Students not only chose the community problem to work on, but were given the power to direct the project itself. It was expected that participation in such a project would enhance student empowerment, interest in environmental problems, and problem solving skills for addressing them. The study was conducted in two inner city Detroit junior high schools; all but one of the 211 students were African American. There were three experimental classes and four control. Both prior to the project, and at its conclusion, students were presented a list of 46 environmental problems and asked to rate how much they felt they could make a difference on them, and their degree of interest in them. As a measure of problem solving skill, students were asked to rate the importance of a list of information sources and action choices with respect to several problem scenarios. Factor analysis was used to cluster the items into a smaller set of scales. Changes in empowerment, interest, and problem solving skill were assessed using these scales, as well as the individual items. Major findings included: (1) Empowerment, interest and problem solving skills were found to be dependent on the nature of the problem, rather than global traits. While this finding is consistent with a considerable body of literature, the domains seem to be much more specific than has been previously acknowledged. (2) Students were least empowered and interested with respect to Urban Nature problems. This was explained by lack of familiarity and the preference of teenagers for active social environments. (3) Participation in a problem solving project is not enough. Working on an environmental problem did not result in significant changes in empowerment, interest, or problem solving skill with respect to the factor analysis derived scales. Further, when individual items were analyzed, the control group increased in empowerment, while the experimental group actually declined. It was concluded that in addition to taking action, students need experiences of success, adequate information, structure and social support.