Photovoice is a method developed by Wang & Burris (1994) for participants to use photographs and reflections to generate dialogue with community members and policy makers who may be in a position to mobilize change. Photos serve to advance social action as the community responds to the participants’ perspectives in developing solutions.
This study showcases the use of photovoice to explore how students in an environmental studies course for non-majors at a Midwestern university engaged with local ecological issues. The thirty students who elected to participate were enrolled in the course to fulfill a general education requirement. Using the photovoice model, participants photographed their communities to identify ecological issues of personal concern. Collectively, they crafted common messages around themes their photographs depicted and shared them at an event with informed community members (Wang & Burris, 1994).
The questions guiding this research were: 1) How did students engage with environmental science topics through photovoice? 2) How did curricular supports serve to strengthen or limit students’ connection to environmental science topics? Data sources included written reflections, audio recordings, and classroom artifacts. Data were analyzed by coding emergent themes and were validated through triangulation, coder consensus and member checks.
Results/Conclusions
Initial findings included examples of how photovoice framed course content in a student-driven, authentic learning environment that helped social science and fine arts majors personally connect to scientific inquiry and understand interconnection between environmental issues. For example, a student photographed paper towel waste in a restroom to connect issues of solid waste, deforestation, and carbon emissions. Students used their photos to guide topic exploration through an annotated bibliography that informed discussions with knowledgeable community members. Findings revealed increased confidence in ecological knowledge, greater hope about possible solutions, and increased sense of voice and representation after these policy-driven environmental discussions. One business major explained how his thinking changed through photovoice: “I thought that government should spend money on conserving the environment after they had fixed the other problems of society. But as I thought about this project more and more, my views on all of that started to shift… Often without a healthy environment, business will falter.” These results imply that using photovoice, non-major undergraduate students may become more engaged and knowledgeable citizens, cultivating communities of environmental advocates in a variety of fields. More opportunities for this kind of dialogue between students and knowledgeable community members are needed.