214 R. Rice et al. Opinions about litter


All three statements regarding litter were affected by Intervention and two statements were affected by School. The statements concerning litter dropping ‘I always put my litter in the bin’ and ‘I leave my litter on the floor’ were both negatively affected by Intervention, with students admitting to dropping litter more after the intervention (Supplementary Fig. 3). These two statements were also af- fected by School, with ‘I always put my litter in the bin’ scor- ing higher in two schools and ‘I leave my litter on the floor’ scoring higher in five schools. However, students also ad- mitted to feelings of sadness when they saw litter in the street or on the beach after the intervention (Table 1).


Opinions about aspirations


The two statements related to becoming involved with conservation activities ‘I want to work with the environ- ment’ and ‘I would like to volunteer with Maio Biodi- versity Foundation one day’ were both positively affected by the intervention (Supplementary Fig. 4). The statement ‘I would like to volunteer with Maio Biodiversity Foundation one day’was affected by School,with one school (Morro) hav- ing overall higher scores compared to the other schools (Table 1).


Knowledge of local environmental issues


Scores for all three questions about local environmental issues significantly increased after the intervention (Supplementary Fig. 5). Additionally, two of the questions were affected by School, with the schools Morrinho, Figueira and Calheta showing higher scores than the other schools (Table 1).


School


Overall environmental opinions and knowledge differed between schools; for nine of the 17 questions responses significantly varied between certain schools. For five of these nine questions the school Morro had significantly higher scores. The only school that did not show significant- ly higher or lower scores for any question was Barreiro. The other schools all showed significantly higher or lower scores for at least one question. The two-way multivariate analysis of variance indicated


a statistically significant difference in student learning be- tween schools (Wilks’ Λ= 0.0496, F =1.33,P= 0.0295), but we observed no differences between genders. Specifically, three of the 17 questions showed a significant difference in learning between schools: ‘I always put my litter in the bin’ (F = 2.989,P = 0.0098), ‘Ilikeanimals’ (F = 2.395,P = 0.0324) and ‘What are the environmental problems in Maio?’ (F = 2.805,P = 0.0142).


Discussion


This study provides four main findings. Firstly, the scores of most statements regarding environmental attitudes and ac- tions were not improved by the one-time exposure to the en- vironmental classroom activity. Secondly, questionnaire responses suggested that after the intervention students were more willing to be involved with environmental activ- ities. Thirdly, the intervention significantly increased student knowledge of local environmental issues. Fourthly, student attitudes and learning were dependent on the school they at- tended.Overall,we conclude that this study highlights the ne- cessity of evaluations of environmental education and suggests that environmental education cannot be assumed to be a general solution but rather is a tool that requires care- ful planning, much like any other conservation action. With respect to the first finding, the majority of state-


ments regarding attitudes towards science lessons, litter and animals did not show significant changes in scores after the environmental education intervention. Although the scores suggested that students would like more science lessons, they did not suggest that students liked science les- sons more after the intervention. This mixed response also occurred in the statements regarding litter. The scores re- vealed that after the intervention students felt more aversion towards seeing litter in the streets and on the beach, but these students also showed higher levels of litter dropping. Finally, of the five statements regarding attitudes towards animals, just one increased in score after the intervention, with the rest not being affected. Therefore, of the 11 state- ments regarding environmental attitudes and actions, only three increased in score after the intervention. Because of the encouraging findings of some pro-


grammes, it is often assumed that environmental education encourages more positive environmental attitudes (Armstrong &Impara, 1991;Farmer et al., 2007; Ruiz-Mallen et al., 2009). However, our study suggests this is not always the case. This could be because the intervention was a one-time activity. Several studies that have shown improved environmental education attitudes were long-term programmes or at least had a higher exposure rate than just one occasion (Volk & Cheak, 2003; Hsu, 2004; Ruiz-Mallen et al., 2009). Although there have been instances of one-time exposures to environmental educational activities having a positive effect (Farmer et al., 2007; Spooner et al., 2019), a one-time classroom educational intervention or activity such as that employed in our study may not be sufficient to change student opinions about science lessons in general or their overall attitudes towards littering and animals. Perhaps the design of the intervention was not optimal, or it could be that more exposure is necessary to generate attitudinal changes. This result highlights the importance of evaluating all types of educational activities. Without evaluation it cannot be assumed that attitudes have improved.


Oryx, 2024, 58(2), 210–217 © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605323000303


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