PARENT SESSION
Poster Session #21: Education.
Wednesday, August 8, 2001. Presentation from 10:30 AM to 12:00 PM. Exhibition Hall
2
The impact of environmental education on rural Costa Rican grade school children: A gender perspective.
Gastreich, Karin1, 1
ABSTRACT- This study measured the impact of interactive environmental education on male and female rural grade school children on the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica. To determine whether environmental awareness was related to the presence of environmental educators, twelve schools with a total of 141 students (69 males and 72 females) were divided between four treatments: intensive, basic, regular and control. Environmental educators from the Neotropica Foundation's Tropical Youth Center (TYC) visited each school with a frequency determined by the treatment. Environmental education visits consisted of dynamic activities that emphasized field investigation, group learning, and student presentations. The impact of the program was evaluated using diagnostic drawings and written responses to key questions. After one year, students demonstrated an increased capacity to identify environmental problems in their own community and potential solutions to these problems. This increase was most closely related to the presence of environmental educators in the case of female students. In the case of male students, the relationship between environmental awareness the presence of environmental educators was not as clear. These results indicate that interactive environmental education projects in the rural tropics can have an important role in strengthening environmental awareness and generating ideas for solutions, especially among female students. Such projects may therefore be of fundamental importance in encouraging young women to be active participants in conservation and sustainable management in the neotropics.
KEY WORDS: environmental education, gender issues, conservation, neotropics