Rapid assessments are useful methods for engaging stakeholders, standardizing monitoring activities and supporting later planning stages. This article proposes to extend rapid assessment methods into 'rapid environmental planning' and to use it for the education of planning professionals. For the assessment stage, the pressure-state-response model…

Fieldwork in ecology education does things. By employing Donna Haraway's concept "becoming-with companion species" and Cathrine Hasse's "emotional collectives" to explore fieldwork practice on a bog in Sweden, a piece of the doings will be told. The aim of this study is to explore how ecology fieldwork affords emotional…

Ocean Literacy is a growing global education movement aimed at deepening and contextualising the human relationship with the ocean. While ocean topics are largely missing from UK school curricula, Ocean Literacy principles offer an opportunity for environmental educators to infuse their programmes with broader perspectives on the ocean, creating…

The complex environmental challenges humanity faces require citizens who are scientifically and environmentally literate. Many environmental education programs are situated in the field where students are immersed in their learning. These field-based activities are engaging but may lack opportunities for students to develop critical thinking and…

This study describes how students' intuitions about sampling are informed by extended experiences in investigating local ecosystems. Elementary students in a rural/suburban district in the upper midwest spent a year conducting first-hand comparative field studies of nearby ponds, prairies, and forests. At the close of the term, we conducted…

This paper demonstrates the positive impact of learning through ecological fieldwork upon children's ability to write, and to write about science. Specifically we have carried out a relatively large-scale study (involving 379 children aged 9-11 years from 8 primary schools in North East England) comparing intervention classes (involved in…

Our study investigated whether problem-oriented designed ecology lessons with phases of direct instruction and of open experimentation foster the development of cross-domain and domain-specific components of "experimental problem-solving ability" better than conventional lessons in science. We used a paper-and-pencil test to assess…

Following evolutionary theory and an agriculture model, ecosystem research has stressed bottom-up dynamics, implying that top wild predators are epiphenomenal effects of more basic causes. As such, they are assumed expendable. A more modern co-evolutionary and wilderness approach--trophic cascades--instead suggests that top predators, whose…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of a ubiquitous problem-based learning system (UPBLS) on students' question-raising performance in field inquiry activities. An experiment was conducted on an elementary school natural science course. A total of 43 sixth and fifth grade elementary students divided into experienced and…

Teachers as well as students often have difficulty formulating good research questions because not all questions lend themselves to scientific investigation. The following is a guide for high-school and college life-science teachers to help students define question types central to biological field studies. The mayfly nymph was selected as the…

The planning of adequate control groups is a central aspect of educational research. Didactical studies, however, are often field studies encountering many problems of everyday classroom teaching? Recent research has indicated that teachers and their beliefs have an enormous influence on learning and retention. Taking this line of evidence…

This project attempted to develop a baseline on which the community could assess its own local environment. The objectives of the study include developing a list of references and resources, developing an assessment model for community use, composing an environmental quality index, determining areas to be protected and persuading decision-making…

Qualitative/naturalistic inquiry intends to discover whatever naturally occurring order exists rather than to test various theories or conceptual frameworks held by the investigator. Naturalistic, ecological data are urgently needed concerning the behavior of educational administrators. Such data can considerably change the knowledge base of the…

Over 600 students taking advanced level biology in more than 130 schools were surveyed to investigate the relationship between their attitudes toward fieldwork and factors associated with fieldwork teaching. Responses given by the students and their teachers are presented and discussed. (Author/JN)

Two designs of undergraduate terrestrial ecology and behavior field courses are described and compared. These include using a variety of projects and using a single individual research project. The relative educational benefits of each are considered and the advantages of each type of course are discussed. (Author/CW)