Book Description

Background: The Reef education evaluation: environmental knowledge and reef experience report concerns PhD research about marine education, and the investigation of learning with high school students and the effect of coral reef monitoring marine experiential education interventions. The effectiveness of classroom learning and reef trips were investigated, as well as strategies to enhance high school students' environmental knowledge towards coral reef sustainability. Purpose: The work evaluates an outdoor marine education project, and if students' learning outcomes were altered. It discusses techniques used to explore links between coral reef environmental knowledge and reef monitoring experience. Setting: The marine education research took place in Queensland high school classrooms and offshore sites in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia from August 2002 to November 2003. Study Sample: Survey data was collected exclusively from a convenience sample of high school students attending five Queensland coastal area schools. The sample was composted of 389 students from grades 11 and 12. Their mean age was 16.0, 39% female, with 57% of the high school students being enrolled in marine studies classes. Intervention: Changes in students' environmental learning outcomes were evaluated when visits to the reef are added to students' classroom curriculum, so the learning interventions were a classroom presentation and reef monitoring experience. Research Design: Quasi-experimental; Statistical Modeling; Statistical Survey; Qualitative; Interview. Control or Comparison Condition: The study compared results of four groups with differing interventions, including a contrast/control group, which participated in none of the interventions. Data Collection and Analysis: The data were collected with pre/post-test survey questionnaires and limited student interviews. The quantitative analysis included SPSS exploratory statistics, Spearman's rho, t-test, one-way ANOVA and comparison of means. The interview responses were collected in situ, after the coral monitoring exercise, and a total of 118 students were interviewed. Transcripts of student responses were sorted into thematic categories and analyzed. Findings: The process is described that investigates the relationship between, environmental knowledge, reef experience and student groups. This investigation compared the results from groups whose experiences varied. The students' mean environmental knowledge score was a low 4.87 correct out of 9 on the pre-test. Group 1, having a reef ecology classroom presentation and reef monitoring experience, had the most change in environmental knowledge and the highest post-test score, while Group 4 (contrast group with no educational interventions) had the lowest. Students who had previous reef experience performed higher on the knowledge pre-test. Previous reef experience was significantly correlated to original environmental knowledge and change in environmental knowledge. Structured interviews: 1) presented the voices of student participants; and 2) added to the quantitative study validity. The students' voices enabled recognition of transformations in learning, and development of critical thinking. Student perspectives created an understanding of the extent direct reef experience makes in achieving changes in environmental knowledge or an ecological vision. Conclusion: An investigation procedure found evident increases in environmental knowledge responses with marine experiential education and previous reef experience is presented. The empirical and interview data substantiated that students who had direct reef experience at outdoor coral reef sites showed the highest environmental knowledge scores. Previous experience at a coral reef had positive influences on student responses. The combination of a classroom presentation and reef visit had the highest positive effect on environmental knowledge, and the student interviews substantiate this finding. Showing underwater experiences of coral reefs change students' relations of proximity. Once a reef substrate has been monitored, the student subjectively feels a knowing of it. Reefs are physically located offshore and underwater, and far from land, conceived as far away. However, the experience of observing and recording brings a direct contact with the myriad living bodies creating a reef, thus creating a learning situation. "The space of relation", an imaginably conceived space between differing bodies, changes for student learners in this study. Citation: Stepath, C. M. (2005). Reef education evaluation: environmental knowledge and reef experience [Electronic version]. Presentation to National Marine Education Association Conference 2005, Maui, Hawaii, USA, July 14, 2005. Retrieved from http://saveourseas.org/stepath.htm. (Contains 3 figures and 1 table.).