Teaching ecology aims to develop environmental awareness, thus a form of environmental education. Considered also a tool for natural resources conservation, promotes dynamic and reflexive attitudes towards the environment. Field studies, (here “expeditions”) are an educational strategy that integrates outdoor practical activities with school curricula goals. They have evolved in developed countries, yet remain under-utilized in Mexico. Here, fragmented and isolated environmental knowledge typically doesn’t enable a comprehensive synthesis or application of knowledge and understanding in children and youth. As high-school students are developing active participation in communal and professional matters (and these can be shaped through knowledge synthesis and application), we consider them a fundamental group for socio-environmental education research.
We wonder, what are high-school students’ perceptions, knowledge, and environmental attitudes? And, are marine expeditions a significant experience for their environmental learning? To examine these, we applied pre- and post-surveys to participants of ecology courses (with marine mammals and equinoderms as ecological subjects) and did participant observation. Two groups involved: one participated in a marine expedition, and, as a control, other participated in a conventional classroom. Answers were categorized and counted by topics, using McNemar change test to know if there were significant changes after each course.
Results/Conclusions
Our main goal: Identifying teaching-learning process in high-school students, through marine expeditions in BCS, Mexico. Preliminary results exhibit participants’ interest in ecological subjects, and after expedition changes of interest towards Natural Protected Areas. Both courses contributed to acquisition of ecology, environmental impacts, and conservation knowledge, but only some topics were significant after expedition. Students perceived abundance of life in the sea, but expedition changed perceptions of their own ecosystem as unique and biodiverse. No course showed change in perceptions relating environmental deterioration and personal activities. However after expedition, did see relationship between environmental deterioration and general human activities. Expeditions helped participants seeing themselves as capable to impact their own world and contributing to scientific knowledge.
Expeditions can be expensive, then acquisition of knowledge in classrooms is preferred. However, values associated with environmental perceptions such as believes, interests, conducts, and emotional understanding makes expeditions productive learning experiences. And, value of emotional understanding is profoundly important when making transcendental decisions in life. Field experiences respond to a context-free, fragmented, and highly rational school curriculum. They can provide holistic, incorporated, and situated educational experiences. They are also means of environmental learning involving emotions and reasons, enabling favorable environmental attitudes towards natural resource conservation.