USEE :: Utah Society for Environmental Education - Study shows kids learn more on field trips

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Study shows kids learn more on field trips

USEE Web

By Tom Wharton

The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 04/21/2009 03:47:15 PM MDT

Layton » Layton Elementary fourth-graders Paul Murawski and Megan Scarlet didn't need a new University of Utah study to tell them they could learn more about wetlands by actually visiting them.

"It's cool," said Paul, whose friends called cattails "tater tot sticks." "You see different things like the green stuff in the water and birds flying everywhere. I have a book but it's a lot better experience actually going out and seeing it."

Megan offered similar sentiments as she prepared to tour the boardwalks with a volunteer instructor at the Nature Conservancy's Great Salt Lake Shorelands Reserve, which gives visitors a close look at wetlands. A tower provides views of the distant Great Salt Lake.

"It's pretty out here," she said. "It's half desert and half lake. You can learn about birds, plants and frogs."

The U. study, published in the Winter 2009 issue of The Journal of Environmental Education, found that students who study wetlands by visiting them not only better understood underlying concepts (wetlands science is a core educational subject for fourth-graders) but had a more positive attitude about wetlands.

Every year, The Nature Conservancy hosts field trips for about 1,500 fourth graders at its Shorelands Reserve. The research, conducted by Adrienne Cachelin, Karen Paisley, and Angela Blanchard, showed that students who participated in the "Wings & Water" Wetlands Education
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Program also formed more positive attitudes about the outdoors and the importance of conservation.

According to Heidi Nedreberg, who directs the Wings & Water program, U. researchers developed a method of evaluating outdoor education programs that not only gauged student knowledge but attitudes. Researchers used four fourth-grade classes from the same school: Two classes actually visited a marsh while two others learned about wetlands through books.

"This study highlights the educational value of experiencing nature first-hand," said Nedreberg. "Utah supports one of the world's most important wetland habitats, yet too many kids are only reading about it in books."

The researchers, with the help of student-interns such as Kristi Kucera, who was on site with kids and teachers from Layton Elementary on a recent rainy Tuesday, are now working to refine their evaluation method.

"Our results show that students who participated in Wings & Water were better able to identify which species belonged in a Utah wetland," said Cachelin, an adjunct faculty member in the U.'s Environmental Studies Program and co-author of the study. "But we wanted to go further and see whether students also formed positive feelings about wetlands, since outdoor experiences may be more central to fostering pro-environmental behaviors than knowledge."

Indeed, the study showed that students who participated in the program expressed more positive sentiments about conservation, wanting to return, being happy about themselves, and feeling safe. Students who did not attend expressed more negative feelings about wetlands.

Susan Olsen, a fourth grade teacher at Layton Elementary, which is less than three miles from the preserve, said many of her students did not realize that the wetlands, plants and animals they are studying can be seen so close to home.

"Visiting lets them really know what a wetland is all about instead of reading about them in a book," she said.

The program relies on volunteers like Rebecca Hunt of Salt Lake City and Bruce Finch of Clearfield, who use their knowledge of the area to help teach children in small groups.

"One percent of Utah is wetlands and 75 percent of that 1 percent are on the great Salt Lake," said Hunt. "Here, they can touch and feel."

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