The Development of an Environmental Site by Sixth Grade Students at Mitchell Middle School in Racine, Wisconsin, and its Effects on Their Environmental Attitudes

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which environmental attitudes improve in students while they are involved in the development and use of a school environmental site. This study consisted of four sixth grade classes, approximately 80 students, from Mitchell Middle School in Racine, Wisconsin. Two classes represented the treatment group while the other two classes represented the control. Both treatment and control groups were given a pretest survey based on the structure of the The Children's Attitude Toward the Environment Scale (Musser and Malkus 1994) with modified statements related to things students would experience interacting in the environmental site: plants, animals, chemical use, the environment, waste, ethics. For each question, the survey's format gave children a choice between two statements. The students chose which statement was most like them. Next to each statement were a large box and a small box. The large box meant "I am a lot like this person". The small box meant "I am a little like this person". The students chose the box that best represented themselves next to their chosen statement. The treatment group was then immersed in the development of the environmental site. Activities included removing weedy vegetation, hauling topsoil into the raised garden beds, generating lists of compatible native Wisconsin plants, researching and making books on the native plants, developing a planting layout for the courtyard, ordering the plants, and planting the native plants in the environmental site. After the treatment was completed, both the control and treatment groups were given the same survey as a posttest. The pre and posttest surveys were tabulated in the following manner: Each of the survey statements had four possible choices. Each of these choices was allotted a number from 1 to 4 with 4 representing the highest environmentally conscious attitude. A total individual score was determined by totaling the score for each of the 14 responses. This means that individual scores could range from 14 to 56. The individual scores were used to calculate the mean individual score. In addition, each individual survey statement was analyzed for its individual results by tallying the number of responses for each of the 4 possible responses. These mean scores were then compared to find changes in environmental attitudes. The overall conclusion from these comparisons is that environmental attitudes did not change. This leads to the possible conclusion that involvement in the development on an environmental site, in itself, does not change environmental attitudes over the short term. A possible reason for this is that the environmental issues represented in the site development and survey were not discussed in enough depth for a change in environmental attitudes to occur. Finally, it's possible that students needed to play more of a leadership role in site development decisions so they could lead, influence and encourage student ownership.