The purpose of this paper is to examine the importance of science field trips as educational tools to connect students to classroom concepts. Experiential learning at formal and informal field trip venues increases student interest, knowledge, and motivation. The teacher's role in preplanning, implementation, and reflection often dictates the impact that the field trip will have on students. Science teacher education programs do not traditionally instruct preservice teachers how to plan or coordinate a field trip. Once teachers are empowered and learn how to develop and orchestrate a successful field trip, they will enable students to develop interest in science, which may lead to improved learning or improved science literacy. Because some school systems are limiting science field trips, this paper concludes by examining inexpensive or costfree field trip ideas.

The aim of this case study was to examine pre-service science teachers’ (PSTs) perceptions of their Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) development after creating digital stories based on science topics drawn from the national curriculum. A total of 21 PSTs enrolled in Introduction to Computers II participated in the study. Data were collected through a demographics questionnaire, a TPACK diagram, an open-ended questionnaire, interviews, and observations. During the study, feedback was provided to participants during each step of the digital storytelling process: writing the stories, finding related pictures, matching the pictures to the stories; and preparing the digital files. The PSTs reported that their technological knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and content knowledge improved during the course.

The paper reports on a study designed to produce a portrait of teachers’ self-reported views of environmental education in Ontario. The mixed method study consisted of an on-line survey (N=377), supplemented by a series of in depth interviews with a volunteer sample (N=24) of the survey respondents. In addition to providing a reasonable and helpful portrayal of what is happening in environmental education at a classroom level in Ontario, further data analysis revealed the existence of certain tensions within participants’ views and reported practices. These tensions we believe, partly explain the limited practice and challenges of environmental education in Ontario classrooms. We have interpreted these tensions as important entry points or opportunities for positive intervention, and discussed how they can be used to stimulate pedagogical development in the field. At an international level, we believe the paper provides deeper insights about the nature of environmental education and its relationship to schooling from the perspectives of teachers.

The literature on professional development is replete with studies that utilize survey, interview, and classroom observation data, primarily collected post professional development experience, to explore teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and actions; however, we lack a clear understanding of teachers’ learning process and reflections during the professional development. The current study aims to address the abovementioned gaps in the literature, by utilizing participant reflections and assignments during a summer professional development opportunity, to elucidate the process by which teachers learn about inquiry-based teaching and begin to implement it in their planning, in addition to factors they deem influential in this process. The findings address three questions about professional development: 1) participants’ process of developing professionally, 2) features of effective professional development, and 3) the relationship between participants and the program. Furthermore, a web of interrelationships is revealed between participant-identified beneficial programmatic features and the participants’ experiences, processes of personal, social, and professional development, evolving conceptions and beliefs, and the translation of these beliefs into practice, as evident in their immediate implementation of ideas in instructional planning.

We studied the impact of environmental education (EE) workshops on Ugandan youth’s (N = 84) perceptions of their relationship with nature, self efficacy, and civic attitudes and skills. Two nature-related measures and two measures related to social competencies were administered before and after EE workshops that were designed to educate youth about environmental conservation through field experiences with university scientists and inquiry-based activities with environmental educators. Pre- and post-workshop scores were analyzed using Mixed Design ANOVAs to determine if EE workshop program format length and setting differentially affected male (n = 43) and female (n = 41) participants’ perceived benefits of EE workshops. Participants’ scores increased following EE workshops, except those in the urban setting, who reported a decrease in their connections to nature compared to those in the rural setting. Longer workshops with more field experiences had the most profound impact on participants’ feelings of connection to nature, social competencies, and commitment to civic action. Males showed increases in self efficacy in the rural workshop and greater connectedness to nature in the longer workshops compared to females. Results underscore the importance of considering geographical and cultural contexts when developing and evaluating EE. 

The purpose of this study is to investigate the environmental attitudes (EA) in the population of 15-year-old French students and, to check if the French student population presents similar EA categorization as described in the different models in the literature (e.g. the Model of Ecological Values, Wiseman & Bogner 2003). The second aim of this study is to identify the different factors influencing students’ EA. We analyse the results of the questionnaire-based Relevance of Science Education Project carried out in France in 2008 as a part of a wider international comparative study ROSE (Relevance Of Science Education). The hierarchical ascendant classification of data from 2124 French students led to three main classes reflecting three different environmental attitudes showing a high resonance with the 2-MEV scale (Wiseman & Bogner 2003). The Model of Ecological Values (2-MEV) is defined with two orthogonal dimensions, Preservation and Utilization. Ecological Values are determined according to an individual’s position on two orthogonal dimensions, one dimension reflecting conservation and protection of the environment (Preservation) and another dimension reflecting the utilization of natural resources (Utilization). Our results show links between students environmental attitudes and students’ level of interest in learning about specific environmental topics, their practice of extra-curricular activities linked to nature and students’ value priorities in different dimensions of their future work. We discuss the implications of these results for the teaching of environmental issues, and for instance, we argue that EA concept could be explained to fifteen-year-old students to encourage them to take into account the diversity of views towards the environment of others, and to position themselves in this diversity of attitudes. They could be aware that for instance, individuals can support environmental issues for different reasons, and consequently may respond to different appeals.