Greening Education to Strengthen Environmental Values and Ecological Crisis Responsiveness in School Students

Recent literature suggests that while the environmental education curriculum followed at schools has raised knowledge among students, it has often not led to significant behavioral change or action. It is suggested that the curriculum should extend beyond providing knowledge, encouraging a deeper, empathetic connection with nature. In this study, the significance of the current environmental curriculum in cultivating responsiveness to the ecological crisis among school students is examined. Further, using theories from behavioral sciences, a structural model is proposed that hypothesizes the critical role of environmental factors, such as nature experiences at schools and in neighborhood green areas in fostering students’ environmental values and connectedness with nature and responsiveness to ecological crises. Partial Least Square method PLS-SEM is employed to examine the relationships and the mediating mechanisms in the proposed model. Key findings show a significant association of nature experiences with connectedness to nature, environmental values and responsiveness to ecological crises, while age, gender and environment education curriculum were not found to be significant. The analysis also revealed a full mediation of connectedness and environmental values in the relationship of nature experience with responsiveness to ecological crises. All together, findings emphasize that supplementing existing school curriculum with nature-based experiential learning for students may support meaningful environmental connectedness, engagement, and motivate sustainable action, instead of sole reliance on classroom-based environmental education.