Research and Evaluation

This exciting new resource was created by PEER Associates in collaboration with the Upper Valley Teaching Place Collaborative, the National Park Service, and Shelburne Farms.

The North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) just put out a briefing titled “Environmental and outdoor education: key to equitably reopening schools.” It details how partnerships with EE providers might be one ticket to lightening the load of educators struggling with how to continue educational practices safely and equitably. The guide enumerates how such programs can help fulfill mandates to spread kids out, how educators can use their school grounds effectively for teaching and learning, how green school guidelines can help make safer and healthier learning environments, and how EE programs can support teachers, students, and parents virtually and at home.

The Benefits of Place-based Education: A REPORT FROM THE PLACE-BASED EDUCATION EVALUATION COLLABORATIVE (SECOND EDITION)

The attached article is a short essay summarizing the convergence of several recent streams of research on the importance of unstructured play time in nature. One advantage of the article is that it is written in lay language and nicely formatted, making it a wecloming introduction to the topic.

The PLACE Program (Place-based Landscape Analysis and Community Education) is a community education program offered to Vermont towns by the University of Vermont and Shelburne Farms. PLACE works with local organizations, schools, residents, and town leaders to provide a series of educational opportunities to community members. Staff members research a particular town’s local and cultural history and share their knowledge and skills with residents through field trips, evening presentations, teacher professional development opportunities, and printed materials. The scope, duration, and public events vary from town to town, depending upon each participating town’s goals and resources.

Museums, zoos, other informal settings can boost science learning, says report, which offers guidance for improving these experiences.

EE research shows promising results in student engagement, academic achievement, environmental stewardship, and connections and collaboration.

The evaluation found that the Project Seasons Outreach program:
- is a rich model with a positive start and is ripe with potential for future success.
- increased the curricular integration of Craftsbury’s gardening and seed saving projects.
- created valuable, sustainable community connections.
- motivated students to eat fresh vegetables during field trips to local farms.

The primary finding from this evaluation was that the Tree Keepers Kids (TKK) program played a key role in helping all five schools under investigation to increasingly use the outdoors as a focal point for learning.

In spring 2005, the Farms for City Kids staff approached PEER Associates, Inc. with a request to conduct a program evaluation. PEER began the evaluation process by facilitating a workshop with staff and board members to discuss the purposes of evaluation, design an overall framework for the evaluation, and begin the development of a logic model for the program. This process of logic modeling helped to clarify what the intended outcomes of the program were and how the staff hoped to achieve them. The logic model was later refined with ongoing input from the farm staff. Though the logic model is an evolving tool, a working draft of the Farms for City Kids logic model can be found in Appendix A.

This brief is the second in the Youth Helping America Series, a series of reports based on data from the Youth Volunteering and Civic Engagement Survey, a national survey of 3,178 American youth between the ages of 12 and 18 that was conducted by the Corporation for National and Community Service in 2005 in collaboration with the U.S. Census Bureau and the nonprofit coalition Independent Sector.

The survey collected information on teen volunteering habits, experiences with schoolbased service-learning, and other forms of civic engagement.

Research summarized in the article cited below (and attached at the bottom of this page) provides longitudinal quantitative evidence that encouraging middle school students (and perhaps elementary students) to consider science careers can be effective. Eighth grade students' self-reported expectations for being in a science related career at age 30 were a more accurate predictor of getting a science-related college degree than the math or science test scores of those same eighth grade students. The article conlcudes: "Encouragement of interest and exposure to the sciences should not be ignored in favor of an emphasis on standardized test preparation" (p. 1144)

This report profiles the cultural competency dimension of the work of three experiential environmental education (E3) programs in Boston, MA.

This study demonstrates that the impacts of greening initiatives in the TDSB are both broad-ranging and encouraging. Particularly striking is that the benefits described emerged across the board.

As part of its initiative, Growing to Greatness: The State of Service- Learning Project, the National Youth Leadership Council commissioned Westat, Inc. to conduct a national study of community service and service- learning in U.S. elementary, middle, and high schools.

This report presents initial findings from this study of 1,799 public school principals1 in a nationally representative sample of public elementary, middle, and high schools in January and February 2004. (The study examines the scope and nature of community service and service-learning in public schools in the United States.

In this report are case studies of five individual schools, a model school program involving five schools, and a statewide program, all of which have adopted EE as the central focus of their academic programs. Also included is a case study of a school that participated in an educational research project on the use of environment-based education in teaching transfer of knowledge. The results in all of the schools studied are impressive and heartening, as the nation searches for effective ways to improve the quality of education
our children receive in public and private schools.

Engaging students in environmental restoration through service-learning partnerships is an effective tool for restoring native ecosystems while simultaneously rebuilding relationships between children and nature and inspiring future stewards of the land. Place-based education provides a framework for connecting students to the land. Stewardship-based service-learning provides a productive means by which to accomplish both education and restoration goals. The Restoration and Reintroducion Education Partnership at the Institute for Applied Ecology is a stewardship-based service-learning program that pairs local schools with natural areas. Students grow threatened and endangered plant species for reintroduction. By including students in the restoration process, we can create a landscape network of highly functioning native ecosystems and give students the skills and relationships necessary to continue to protect ecosystems in the future. Each of us in the field of native plants has a role in cultivating stewardship, a sense of place, a connection with nature, and hope.

Planners and educators have a unique opportunity to become part of a movement to incorporate children in environmental stewardship. By using environmental education to create a basis of knowledge about local issues and to provide a forum for children's participation, their ideas can be incorporated into planning. This paper discusses the importance of including children in environmental planning as well as how to use environmental education as an approach. The subsequent chapters introduce the field of environmental education and demonstrate ways it can be incorporated into school curricula exemplified through three case studies. The cases illustrate how programs in the United States are challenging youth to become active stewards of their local environments. Although environmental education can be utilized for children of all ages as well as adults, this paper focuses on grades four through nine. The final chapters include an examination of these programs based on an evaluative framework and provide a summary of the findings.

Despite activists' calls for higher education to lead society on a sustainable path, there is little systematic guidance available for campus sustainability advocates and scholars. To address this research deficiency, this study identifies organizational factors which determine why and how some campuses are emerging as sustainability leaders while most campuses lag. To develop this framework, this study surveys U.S.  (four-year) colleges and universities which have signed the Talloires Declaration on Sustainability (as of April 2001), compares environmental efforts at two public Midwestern universities, and assesses the University of Michigan's sustainability initiatives.

Research shows that when young people participate in service, they are more likely to continue on a pathway of lifelong civic engagement. Research also shows that service-learning, an approach to education that ties community service to classroom instruction and reflection, contributes to students' success and has a positive impact on their social behavior, habits, and attitudes. In an effort to better understand the trends in community service and service-learning, the Corporation surveyed a national sample of over 2,000 K-12 public school principals regarding service in their schools and compared findings to a 1999 study, analyzing changes over time. The research report Community Service and Service-Learning in America's Schools (2008) provides insight into the prevalence of community service and service-learning in public schools as well as the supports and policies in place to sustain and build service-learning programs. The full report, and other research by the Corporation for National and Community Service, can be found at www.nationalservice.gov/research.

Gardening provides different forms of engagement for children, including designing, planting, and maintaining gardens; harvesting, preparing, and sharing food; working cooperatively in groups; learning about science and nutrition; and creating art and stories inspired by gardens. The studies summarized have been selected because they include control groups, pre- and post-measures, well controlled correlations, or in-depth qualitative analyses. For more studies, see Blair (2009), "The child in the garden: An evaluative review of the benefits of school gardening."

The primary finding from this evaluation was that outdoor classrooms (OCs) were valued by school communities, and that in order for schools to take full advantage of the opportunities provided by the OC, they required additional support, such as professional development (PD) workshops, mentoring, and networking.

This evaluation sought to understand several questions, including:


In what ways has Williston community members' enthusiasm about their community changed since Williston PLACE began?
In what ways has Williston community members' level of engagement in their community changed since Williston PLACE began?
In what ways has Williston community members' intentionality about creating change in their community changed since Williston PLACE began?
How do participants perceive the various aspects of PLACE (presentation series, educator involvement, Vision to Action forum, Steering Committee participation)? Do these multiple components complement, enhance, inhibit, or create synergy among each other? Are different outcomes associated with different types of participation? (Note: The extent to which we can answer to this last question is dependent upon the ways in which we can break down the survey data by groups, which may be dependent upon response patterns.)
What factors would continue to motivate community members' enthusiasm for and participation in their community?

This evaluation project created assessment tools and worked with 14 schools, 6 districts, 2 counties, and over 800 students to measure student gains in personal growth, classroom community, attitudes toward learning, relationship with the environment, and environmental knowledge.

Researchers from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and MIT have released the results of a groundbreaking study that suggests charter school students in Boston outperform their peers at other public schools in Boston. Results for pilot schools were less clear; some analyses showed positive results at the elementary and high school level, while results for middle school students were less encouraging. The study uses an innovative research design based on school lotteries that allowed for a direct comparison of charter and pilot school students with their peers.

In this report, we present ample evidence from the academic and practice-based literature; from 'good practice' drawn from an Internet search and from our own focus groups, our user, non user and staff interviews at the BNC and the BMB, and at Mass Audubon HQ, that there exists the perception, especially but not exclusively among lower income people and those of color, that diversity is not a priority for environmental organizations, including Mass Audubon, that the employees in such organizations are predominantly white and upper class, and that this effectively defines both the organizational culture, and cultural approach of such organizations.

This evaluation focused on two AMC education programs, the Youth Opportunities Program (YOP), and the A Mountain Classroom Program (AMCR).

Access to nature contributes to the health and well-being of young people, and helps to form a foundation for the development of responsible environmental behavior. The planning and development professions can play a key role in ensuring that young people have access to nature in their everyday lives. This factsheet summarizes studies that identify some of the benefits that children can gain.

There are a number of nationwide, whole-school initiatives developing around the world that reflect a range of innovative approaches to sustainability. This study was commissioned to review some of these programs and document their experiences, achievements and lessons learnt. The research has been undertaken by Macquarie University and commissioned by the Department of the Environment and Heritage, Australian Government, over a 4 month period from March-June, 2004.

This report presents findings from an ongoing study of 3- and 5-day residential education programs at a national park institute. The sample includes over 1000 students representing over 100 school groups over a two year period from 2005 to 2007.

Boston MA's schoolyards had seriously deteriorated since the middle of the 20th century resulting in dangerous and unusable outdoor spaces. Beginning in the mid 1990s, a program to renovate these schoolyards has resulted in approximately half of the schools now having outdoor recreational, learning and garden spaces. This study compared the 4th grade test score results in renovated vs. unrenovated schools.

Growing to Greatness: The State of Service Learning Project is the first ongoing national study of the state of service-learning in kindergarten through 12th grade. It documents the unfolding story of service learning and provides useful information to improve implementation, inform public policy, and give a clear picture of the many ways young people contribute to society.

This paper examines connections between childhood involvement with the natural environment and adult environmentalism from a life course perspective.

This article presents a framework for developing internally sustainable evaluation systems for environmental education organizations, although the framework can be applied to other types of organizations.

Survey results reporting on intensive weeklong summer institutes for teachers showed an overall increase in all four dimensions of teacher practice measured.

The pursuit of environmental literacy in America is widespread and popular but it needs to be ratcheted up a few more notches to become finally effective. The good news is that it surely will, and the foregoing chapters even lead us to a few final thoughts on where to go from here.

New research conducted by Boston's Center for Collaborative Education documents significant achievement by students who attend the city's Pilot Schools. Pilot School students are performing better than the district averages across every indicator of student engagement and performance, including the statewide-standardized assessment (MCAS). In other standard measures, Pilot School students show better rates of attendance and fewer out of-school suspensions, and more go on to attend university or technical college after they graduate.

This is an aricle from the March 2005 issue of Science magazine exploring alternative and experimental assessments of math and science curriculum currently used in schools.

This is an article from a 2004 issue of Science magazine that looks at program evaluation and the lack of valuable evaluations and evaluation tools to assess school programs.

Evaluations of traditional out of classroom learning have identified the capacity of partnerships to develop positive attitudes, arouse learners' interest and improve behaviour. The unique nature of the Guardianship Scheme allows this study to go further. Based on in-depth interviews with students past and present, teachers and Trust wardens, it looks at the longer-term impact of out of classroom learning experiences on knowledge, attitudes, behaviour, and decisions and choices young people make.

While volunteering is just one form of community involvement, research has shown that it is often connected to other forms of engagement, and, among youth, volunteering plays a valuable role in shaping how youth learn to interact with their community and develop the skills, values, and sense of empowerment necessary to become active citizens.

Five promising practices for environmental service-learning partnerships, as well as some strategies for sustaining these partnerships beyond national service funding are offered. A framework for program sustainability was developed for practitioners to use or adapt as a planning tool.

In 1999-2000, the East Feliciana parish began Project Connect, a district wide place-based math and science initiative, in an attempt to reform their poor academic performance. This study investigated 4th grade ELA, Math, Science, Social Studies scores on Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (LEAP 21) from 1998-2002, comparing the district to the state for percentage of students at "unsatisfactory" level. The performance gap between the district and state decreased for all subject areas. Further, the greatest individual school success occurred at Slaughter Elementary where three of the district's place-based leadership team teach.

This study compared 3 pairs of Houston schools, matched by demographics. The treatment group included at total of 306 4th grade students whose teachers were implementing NWF's Schoolyard Habitat Program. The control group consisted of a total of 108 4th grade students whose teachers used a more traditional curriculum. Measures included standardized test scores (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills), as well as attendance and demographic data. Changes were measured between students' 3rd grade data and their 4th grade data from the subsequent year. Results showed that SYH students increased math scores significantly more than peers with a traditional curriculum. Reading scores were slightly negatively correlated with SYH participation, though the author argued that the curriculum was more directly connected to math than reading.

Why do some California elementary schools serving largely low-income students score as much as 250 points higher on the state's academic performance index (API) than other schools with very similar students? This study sought answers to that question by surveying principals and teachers in 257 California elementary schools serving similar student populations and analyzing the results to determine which current K-5 practices and policies are most strongly associated with higher levels of student achievement.

The Connecting Schools to People and Place Program (CS2P) was launched in January 2003 as a pilot project between Woodsville Elementary School (WES) and New Hampshire Project Learning Tree (NHPLT). The program was designed as a model school improvement program, based on the environment and focused on sustained and intensive professional development. The goal of CS2P is to provide today's youth with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to become stewards of their local forests and other natural resources.

In 1991 the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation (WDGF) began a program of school improvement in Manitoba. It was conceived as a pilot project to develop and test a Canadian school improvement model, with an emphasis on improving secondary schooling particularly for students at risk. Manitoba was chosen for the pilot because it was an appropriate but manageable size for the planned initiative with a government that was open to foundation involvement. Over the years since its inception, this program has grown into the Manitoba School Improvement Program (MSIP) and changed in a number of ways. Throughout the life of MSIP, the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation have commissioned a number of evaluations to describe the role and influence of MSIP. This paper describes the final evaluation completed by a team of researchers at OISE/UT.

Project WILD, an environmental education curriculum, celebrates widespread use in the United States and several countries around the world. This study measures the effectiveness of Project WILD versus non-WILD methods of instruction in addressing environmental education objectives with South Dakota middle school students.

Fifty-six percent of the treatment group reported that outdoor school represented the first time they had spent time in a natural setting. Participation in outdoor school was associated with higher ratings of conflict resolution skills and cooperation (longer-term student assessments), and environmental behaviors (parent reports). Strong evidence of the benefits of outdoor school is seen in teachers' ratings of students--students who attended the program received significantly higher ratings than children who did not participate in six of eight constructs: self-esteem, conflict resolution, relationship with peers, problem solving, motivation to learn, and behavior in class. Children who attended outdoor school significantly raised their science scores by 3 points (27 percent), as measured by a pre- and post-survey administered immediately upon their return to school. The increase in science knowledge was maintained six to ten weeks following program participation, with no significant loss in science scores. The positive outcomes associated with students' participation in the five-day outdoor science school are promising, especially given the relatively short timeframe of the program.

This study investigated the effects of early-life experiences on an individual's environmental beliefs. Data from a survey of 533 university undergraduate students from 20 areas of academic study were analyzed using sequential regression to determine the degree to which current environmental beliefs could be explained by early childhood experiences. Results showed that four of the seven independent variables (appreciative outdoor activities, consumptive outdoor activities, media exposure, and witnessing negative environmental events) explained 14% of the variance in the eco-centric/anthropocentric beliefs. Three of the independent variables (early-life participation in mechanized outdoor activities, education, and involvement with organizations) were not significant predictors of eco-centric/anthropocentric beliefs. Implications for research and practice were discussed.

Based on interviews with 18 professors of education, this study provides a report on the ways in which environmental education (EE) theory and practice are currently incorporated into preservice elementary education science and social studies methods courses. It further reports perceptions of faculty about the barriers to incorporating EE in preservice programs and their ideas about action steps toward a more widespread use of EE as an integrating context for teaching preservice science and social studies methods courses.

SEER is a cooperative endeavor of 16 state departments of education. SEER works to enhance student achievement, improve K-12 instructional practices and help schools achieve their improvement goals by implementing the EIC Model. This 1998 study is one of the landmarks in research on EE and student achievement.

Using data from the 1990 U.S. Census from the New York State Department of Education, I identify communty-level characteristics associated with the presence or absence of a school. My inquiry focuses on two sets of rural communites: those with populations of 500 or less and those with populations between 501 and 2,500. I find that the social and economic welfare in all rural communities is higher in places that have schools. Further, in the smallest villages, which have fewer resources and fewer civic places, schools are especially critical to the social and economic well-being of the community. For policymakers, educational administrators, and local citizens it is important to understand that schools are vital to rural communities. The money that might be saved through consolidation could be forfeited in lost taxes, declining property values, and lost businesses.

This study investigated the impacts of playing in a natural environment on motor development in children. Methods from landscape ecology were applied for landscape analysis and entered into a Geographic Information System (GIS). Localization of play habitats was done by use of Global Positioning Systems (GPS). A quasi-experimental study was conducted on five-, six-, and seven-year old children with an experimental group playing in a natural environment and a control group playing in a more traditional playground. When provided with a natural landscape in which to play, children showed a statistically significant increase in motor fitness. There were also significant differences between the two groups in balance and co-ordination in favor of the experimental group. The findings indicate that landscape features influence physical activity play and motor development in children.

Green outdoor settings appear to reduce ADHD symptoms in children across a wide range of individual, residential, and case characteristics.

Over the last three years (2001-2004), Learning through Landscapes (LTL), the national school grounds charity, has been working in partnership with Sport England and the New Opportunities Fund to deliver a targeted programme of school grounds improvements throughout England. With funding of 4.6m [British pounds], the Grounds for Improvement Programme has involved some 350 schools nationally with the aim of improving the use, design and management of their grounds for the benefit of the schools and their local communities.

This paper is part of an effort undertaken by The Finance Project to bring coherence to the fragmented and still emerging field of professional development for educators and, in so doing, to build greater understanding of what makes professional development effective. It seeks to inform not only the practice of educators in the classroom and the administrators that assist them but also decisions made by foundations and by policymakers, whose knowledge of and support for effectively designed professional development is critical to its dissemination, implementation and success.

This toolkit takes the best practices of award-winning schools and organizes them into a step-by-step planner for designing and implementing professional development. It digs beneath the award criteria and tells us how award winners did it.

Professional development -- including both pre-service and in-service training -- is a critical component of the nation's effort to improve schools and student achievement. Key to ensuring that teachers, principals, and other educators have the knowledge and skills they need to meet the challenges of today's classrooms is ensuring that they have access to sustained, intensive professional development. Financing directly affects what professional development takes place, how it is made available, who participates, who pays, and what impacts it has. Thus, improving professional development in education will depend on better information about what various models of professional development cost, how cost-effective those investments are, what resources are available to finance professional development, and how financing strategies can help achieve education reform goals.

Using the Environment as an Integrating ContextTM (EIC) for student learning, the South Carolina EIC School Network is changing the way that teachers teach and students learn at ten pilot middle schools in the state. Data collected in forty-eight schools across the nation since 1996 indicate that the EIC program has significant positive effects on academic achievement, classroom behavior, and instructional practices.

Although its effects are difficult to measure precisely, leadership is clearly important. But what, exactly, is leadership and how does it apply to the school environment?

This report looks at what is known about young people's (3-19) views towards, and learning about, food, farming and land management. It draws together the findings of 190 pieces of research published internationally in English between 1960-2002.

This report looks at what is known about young people's (3-19) views towards, and learning about, food, farming and land management. It draws together the findings of 190 pieces of research published internationally in English between 1960-2002.

Place-based or environment-based education uses the environment as an integrating context (EIC) across disciplines. It is characterized by exploration of the local community and natural surroundings, hands-on experiences of environmental discovery and problem-solving, inter-disciplinary curricula, team teaching, and learning that accommodates students' individual skills and abilities. Research shows that this approach delivers many benefits to students.

Community organizing engages parents in poor performing schools to improve children's educational outcomes. Although standard parent involvement practices such as monitoring children's homework, reading to them, and volunteering in schools are linked to students' positive academic and behavioral outcomes (Jordan, Orozco, & Averett, 2001), they are oftentimes insufficient to boost the achievement of low-income children in troubled schools. Parents in these failing schools realize that although they are responsible for supporting children's learning, schools are responsible for providing a quality education (Zachary & Olatoye, 2001). Poor school performance, high dropout rates, lack of qualified teachers, and inadequate facilities demand new forms of parent engagement to hold schools accountable. Community organizing offers one strategy to engage parents to effect system change.

The meaning particular places hold for those who inhabit these familiar spaces are important for understanding the choices and decisions people make during their lives. The places people live often acquire special emotional significance. Quotidian interaction that occurs in these settings creates attachment to place. The phenomenon of place attachment is a common one because human beings exist in particular spatial settings. Place attachment refers to the emotional connection formed by an individual to a physical location due to the meaning given to the site as a function of its role as a setting for experience. A range of thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and behavior as well as feelings are evoked through attachment to place. Thus, place attachment involves an elaborate interplay of emotion, cognition, and behavior in reference to place.

This study investigated the effects of using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to improve middle school students' and their teachers' understanding of environmental content and GIS in a constructivist classroom. Constructivism provided the theoretical framework with Bonnstetter's inquiry evolution and Swartz's skillful problem solving as the conceptual framework for designing these GIS units and interpreting the educational results.

Now completing its fourth year, the Northeast Community Mapping Program (CMP) is a place-based education professional development program of the Orton Family Foundation and the Vermont Institute of Natural Sciences (VINS). CMP provides educators and community members training and ongoing assistance to design and implement place-based curricula for youth. Staff members help educators and community members design service-learning projects that utilize student-generated information about the local community and landscape.

This document is an attempt at outlining and describing pertinent educational evaluation methodologies and tools. Its purpose is not to reinvent the wheel, but rather to connect environmental educators with solid, practical evaluation strategies, methods and advice.

Making the Difference: Research and Practice in Community Schools, a report recently released by the Coalition for Community Schools, features 20 different community school models across the country that help improve student performance.

This landmark investigation of over 21,000 students showed a dramatic correlation between daylit school environments and student performance.

Study on the effects on nearby greenspace and vegetation on the stress levels of children in grades 3-5.

Psychologists' research explains the mental and physical restoration we get from nature--and has important implications for how we build our homes, work environments and cities.

The Children's Environments Research Group (CERG), provides an important link between university scholarship and the development of policies, environments and programs that fulfill children's rights and improve the quality of their lives. CERG has two major overlapping strands of work. The first is a focus on the planning, design and management of children's physical environments. The second is a broader concern with fulfilling the rights of children, sometimes without a specific focus on the physical environment, such as our work on the development of parent's and children's understanding of children's rights and of children's experience with violence.

GLOBE is a worldwide hands-on, primary and secondary school-based education and science program. Website offers access to several years of evaluation reports and methods.

This document reports on a 22-month effort to identify, summarize and analyze evaluations of school and youth programs that show gains for minority youth across a broad range of academic achievement indicators, from early childhood through advanced postsecondary study.

The following text was written in order to capture the spirit of the conversations that took place over two and half days at the Teton Science School in Kelly, Wyoming, in May 2000. I have chosen to reflect on the dialogues and presentations that took place at the Summit, and then to document their collective course. Over those few days, the participants in the Summit explored the topic of evaluation under the guidance of the Summit facilitator, Michael Patton. As he came to understand the concerns of his audience, and they came to some consensus on what evaluation means to them, the group of participants considered different ideas, issues and questions regarding their work in environmental education.

The model of Communication for Social Change (CFSC) describes an iterative process where "community dialogue" and "collective action"work together to produce social change in a community that improves the health and welfare of all of its members. It is an integrated model that draws from a broad literature on development communication developed since the early 1960s. In particular, the work of Latin American theorists and communication activists was used for its clarity and rich recommendations for a more people-inclusive, integrated approach of using communication for development. Likewise, theories of group dynamics, conflict resolution, leadership, quality improvement and future search, as well as the network/convergence theory of communication, have been used to develop the model.

Rural schools have different needs and pre-service teachers should in these regions should be trained with specific needs of rural students in mind.

A 1994 study of EE programs provided by state, federal and private organizations as well as public and private schools and universities.

The Boston Schoolyard Initiative and the Global Learning Group assessment of schoolyard impact on the on academic learning and child development.

A study on brain development and how people, of all ages, learn. Also looks at learning environment and techniques for teachers based on the findings.

Student assessment and environment-based programs

Education for Aquatic Stewardship

The synthesized research findings presented in this document are based in part on an earlier study (Marzano, 1998), which summarizes findings from more than 100 studies involving 4000+ control groups.

Written and endorsed by a distinguished and diverse group of more than 50 scholars and practitioners, The Civic Mission of Schools summarizes the evidence in favor of civic education in K-12 schools; analyzes trends in political and civic engagement; identifies promising approaches to civic education; and offers recommendations to educators, policymakers, funders, researchers, and others.

This report describes the efficacy of environment-based education in helping young people become lifelong learners and leaders.

This study set out to address these gaps in the literature and to inform the practice of service-learning by examining the following research questions: What and how do students learn about citizenship through service-learning? Asked another way, in what ways do service-learning experiences contribute to students' understanding of citizenship?

McREL (Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning) has conducted several powerful meta-analyses of research on school improvement, compiling them in readable and usable reports.

Can education programs improve the environment? According to the National Environmental Education Advisory Council (2005), this is one of the most important questions facing the field of environmental education as it matures and responds to challenges from critics and supporters alike. This study was aimed directly at addressing this question.

This 6-page brochure summarizes evaluation data from six place-based education programs representing nearly 100 schools (rural, suburban, and urban) covering twelve states.