Environmental education: effects on knowledge, attitudes and perceptions, and gender differences

1 Environmental education: effects on knowledge, attitudes and perceptions, and gender differences Since it emerged in the 1960s, environmental education has been understood as a response to social concern for the environment (Gough, 2014) and as a decisive tool in the promotion of a responsible citizenry committed to the sustainability of environmental policies (Bell, 2016). In the current context, where the management of climate change has become so urgent, there is a clear need for developing a quality environmental education for the general population, especially among children and young people (Rodrigo- Cano et al., 2019). Thus, environmental education has become a privileged means to attain the goals of sustainable development for both social agents and companies (Ilovan et al., 2019; United Nations, 2019). To reach the social impact that it pursues, environmental education has been especially focused on the child and youth population, since it is not strongly influenced at the social and cultural level (Hueso, 2017). According to Freire (2014), the connection between human beings and nature is built throughout the entire lifespan, although childhood is a crucial moment to enhance such link. This model, focused on the central role of school-age children, does not exclude adults from the processes of environmental education; rather, this poses an education from childhood, where young people would be the promoters of behavioural changes in adults (Cuello, 2003). In fact, some studies have already reported evidence of this indirect impact (Simonds et al., 2019). Among environmental education programmes, the management of water shortage is one of the main issues, since the demographic growth predicted for the next decades will increase the water demand, which will pose a challenge to governments (Nieto, 2011). The global water crisis, linked to the increasing degree of environmental awareness of society, must become a motivation to raise responsible citizens who are capable of improving the global management of the water resources (Araya & Moyer, 2006). Therefore, there is an increasing need to educate minors to create a culture responsible for the environment and, particularly, the management of water (Cárdenas, 2013; IGU-CGE, 2016). Developing and settling favourable behaviours toward the environment in the first years of schooling increases the probability that these will remain in future stages and multiply their effects on the different sectors of the population pyramid (Thompson et al., 2011). Consequently, water companies have become especially interested in the development of educational programmes to raise awareness among minors (Torres, 2015). The descriptive studies carried out to date justify the need and the opportunity to promote environmental education through such programmes. Since Varoglu et al. (2018) reported that students usually show wrong 2 ideas and deficiencies in their knowledge about the environment, as well as inappropriate attitudes and behaviours for adequate protection of the environment. Regarding water, specific knowledge about its management is frequently incorrect among students of all ages (Smakhtin & Schipper, 2008). In this respect, the influence of gender is diverse and inconclusive. Some studies have not found differences between boys and girls (Varoglu et al., 2018), whereas others have reported some differences, in favour of girls (Zhan et al., 2018). Besides, there also seems to be differences between those who live in rural and urban contexts, with those who live in cities being in worse conditions (Grodzińska-Jurczak et al., 2006). However, further research is needed (Warner et al., 2018). To respond to this reality, intervention programmes specifically related to water have been designed and applied in the last years built from the collaboration between public administrations and different population sectors (Çoban et al., 2011). More specifically, these initiatives have been especially focused on disseminating the understanding of public programmes and reviving the interest of the citizenry in sustainable water resources and water quality (Araya & Moyer, 2006), e.g., through the consolidation of the “World Water Monitoring Day”, whose impact has already been reported (Bennett & Heafner, 2004). Other community campaigns have been aimed at generating a better understanding of geology and hydrology (Cockerill, 2010). Another scope of development of these programmes was the educational scope (Amahmid et al., 2019; Thompson et al., 2011; Zhan et al., 2018), highlighting the propositions that pursue social transformation through behaviour with and in nature (Hueso, 2017). The design of most of these programmes has been based on the existing reality of the immediate environment, considering water conservation as the main objective, and including teachers, and their training, in the design and implementation of the programmes (Genc, 2015). The practical activities that allow transferring the contents learned in the classroom to the family context have proved to be relevant, as well as knowing the previous ideas of the recipients of the programmes (Zhan et al., 2018) and the adult population (Thompson et al., 2011). Within this model, a wide variety of initiatives have been implemented, including talks, conferences and master lectures (Cockerill, 2010), workshops, and even visits to natural spaces (Cachelin et al., 2009). Other studies have also highlighted the importance of the active role of the recipients of environmental programmes (Genc et al., 2018; Scoarize et al., 2021), with the realisation of direct actions in the specific intervention scope being the most common strategy, such reforestation (Sousa et al., 2016). These field practices have also proved to be relevant in the case of water (Cachelin et al., 2009). 3 For environmental education to adjust to the needs and allow measuring the impact of educational practices, it is important to determine the recipients’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviours, and whether these change as a function of the participation in programmes of environmental education (Simonds et al., 2019). These propositions are found in validated instruments that allow measuring these dimensions, such as the ACSI (Dijkstra & Goedhart, 2012) to evaluate pro-environmental behaviours and knowledge of climate change, the CHEAKS (Leeming et al., 1995) to measure environmental attitudes and knowledge, the Environmental Values Short Form (Zimmermann, 1996) to evaluate environmental values or the Environmental Attitudes Inventory (Milfont & Duckitt, 2010) to measure environmental attitudes. However, there are still few instruments that allow specifically evaluating knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of children and adolescents about water. Besides, there are few studies conducted rigorously with large samples of students, despite the increasing importance of environmental education (Potter, 2010) and the general investment made on it (United Nations, 2019), particularly regarding water (UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme, 2018). Therefore, there seems to be no clear evidence of the impact of these measures on individual change and social improvement. The relevance of obtaining such information has already been pointed out for years, although, at the same time, the difficulty to attain such goal has also been highlighted, given the diversity of initiatives and environmental education programmes which do not usually produce immediate changes (Amahmid et al., 2019; Benayas et al., 2003). Furthermore, environmental education and programmes related to water are promoted by water companies. This hinders their evaluation since their social objectives include the promotion of respect for the environment and water, but not the difficult task of showing their actions follow the principles of Evidence-Based Practices (Shaw, 2010). Thus, it is fundamental that the companies that lead these initiatives become advanced in the evaluation of the impact of their educational measures on the knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about the environment (Bergman, 2016). Research Aims and Hypotheses The present exploratory study aims to advance the need to evaluate the impact of educational programmes that are being developed to address environmental education and, more specifically, water management. This would provide better knowledge of where and how educational efforts should be invested, to ensure the efficacy of the initiatives developed for the protection of the environment and water resources. Therefore, this study analyses the possible changes in the environmental perception, respect for water and 4 knowledge of the water cycle of primary and secondary education minors, after the implementation of educational programmes. Based on the reviewed literature, the objectives of this investigation are: 1) To analyse the impact of educational programmes on the environmental perception of minors; 2) To explore the impact of educational programmes about water on the attitudes of respect for water; 3) To analyse the impact of educational programmes about water on the knowledge about the water cycle; 4) To explore the possible differences in the impact of educational programmes according to gender. Specifically, the related hypotheses are: 1) The development of educational programmes increases the environmental perception of the participants; 2) The development of educational programmes reinforces the participants’ attitudes of respect for water; 3) The development of educational programmes increases the participants’ knowledge about the water cycle; 4) The impact of educational programmes is similar in boys and girls. Method Participants The study sample was composed of 607 students, between 8 and 16 years of age, from 8 different schools: 6 primary educational centres (hereinafter, PE) and 2 compulsory secondary educational centres (hereinafter, CSE). Specifically, there were 414 PE students (46% girls; Mage = 9.94; SDage = .92) and 193 CSE students (44.8% girls; Mage = 13.49; SDage = 1.02). Specifically, Table 1 shows the data according to gender, age and stage. Throughout these variables there are some missing data ranging from 31 to 37 (see Table 1). TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE Procedure and Design This study was conducted in collaboration with a Spanish state company of water supply and sanitation that manages the integral cycle of water in a city of Southern Spain and 11 municipalities of the same province. Specifically, it supplies water to 1,064,284 people (Spanish Institute of Statistics, 2018). As a Spanish state company, its duties include the contribution to improving society, in this case, through actions of 5 environmental sensitisation, whose objectives are: to show citizens how the Water Cycle works, raise awareness about the responsible use of water, thus promoting attitudes focused on the respect for and protection of this resource, and transmitting the environmental initiatives and policies of the company. These contributions are included within a set of educational programmes that are offered to the educational centres. The interventions offered by the company are organised around two main educational programmes: “Come to meet us” and “Water in the classrooms”. The educational centres can choose which specific programmes are necessary for their particular context. On the one hand, the programme “Come to meet us” offers educational centres a visit to different facilities involved in the Integral Water Cycle. This programme includes different facilities for students of different ages, some of them for children over 5 years of age and others for children over 10 years of age. Depending on the facility, the visit takes between 90 and 120 minutes. Furthermore, it includes a campaign of participatory reforestation of the vegetation of a reservoir, whose aim is to disseminate information that contributes to the conservation of ecosystems and the sensitisation of the students. It is aimed at PE students and consists of a first theoretical session that constitutes the basis of a second practical session, in which the reforestation is carried out. On the other hand, the programme “Water in the classrooms” allows students to know the urban integral water cycle, discover and understand the importance of water as a resource, and learn to take care of it. It is aimed at PE students and has a duration of 90-120 minutes. Moreover, it includes a student sensitisation campaign to raise awareness about the ecological problem posed by the wrong use of wet wipes in households, water sanitation networks and the environment. This campaign is aimed at both PE and CSE students, with an approximate duration of one hour. All these educational programmes were implemented by environmental educators and, in all cases, the materials were created by experts and supervised by the company. Specifically, at the beginning of the academic year 2018-2019, the company contacted educational centres, informing them about the educational programmes that are developed by education professionals trained for the purpose. Among the educational centres that were included for the realisation of the educational programmes, the company randomly selected 8 centres to carry out the investigation. Then, after agreeing with the teachers, the students were given printed questionnaires one week before the implementation of the educational programmes (Time 1; hereinafter T1). To guarantee the fidelization with the programme, a member of the research team randomly visited each environmental education programme and facility. Since there are doubts about the prevalence of the positive effects of environmental education programmes 6 (Benayas et al., 2003), despite the long-term effects reported by some studies (Williams & Chawla, 2016), at least one month after the end of the interventions in the educational centres, the questionnaires were administered again, following the same procedure (Time 2; hereinafter, T2). All this was carried out during the second trimester of the year 2019. Measures Environmental perception. The naturalist orientation, that is, the need of people to get closer to nature, delve into its knowledge and defend it, was measured only in PE students by company choice. To this end, we used the Spanish adaptation of the Children’s Environmental Perception Scale (CEPS) (Larson et al., 2011), which explores two differentiated components of environmental perception: eco-affinity and ecoawareness. Eco-affinity is understood as the interest in nature and the predisposition to carry out actions that favour the environment. Eco-awareness refers to the understanding that people show about environmental problems, such as environmental sustainability (Collado & Corraliza, 2015). The scale is unidimensional and consists of 16 Likert items with 5 response options each, from 0 (totally disagree) to 4 (totally agree) (Cronbach’s α = .84), e.g., “Plants and animals are important to people”. Attitudes of respect for water. Since the attitudes of respect for water are the central axis of the programmes implemented in this study and are a key requirement for the change of behaviour in daily living, it was necessary to apply an instrument that was specifically focused on the respect for water and which was short and easy to administer in PE and CSE students. Therefore, the Water Respect Attitudes Scale (WRAS) was created ad hoc, which is based on validated instruments about environmental attitudes, such as the Children’s Environmental Attitude and Knowledge Scale (CHEAKS) (Leeming et al., 1995), the Environmental Values Short Form (Zimmermann, 1996) and the Environmental Attitudes Inventory (Milfont & Duckitt, 2010). This scale consists of 10 Likert items with 5 response options each, from 0 (totally disagree) to 4 (totally agree) (Cronbach’s α = .79), e.g., “I close the tap of the sink while I brush my teeth to save water”. Knowledge about the water cycle. From the materials of the educational programmes implemented, we built two scales ad hoc to evaluate the knowledge of the participants about the water cycle. On the one hand, we designed the Water Cycle Scale (WCS) for PE, which consists of 14 Likert items, of which 2 are reversed items (items 9 and 10), with 5 response options each, from 0 (totally disagree) to 4 (totally agree) (Cronbach’s α = .65), e.g., “Water is very important for the life of all living beings”. On the other hand, we 7 developed the Water Cycle Scale (WCS) for CSE, which consists of 20 items, of which 3 are reversed items (items 9, 11 and 16), with 5 response options, from 0 (totally disagree) to 4 (totally agree) (Cronbach’s α = .68), e.g., “Water can fall in three different ways, depending on the temperature: hail, rain and snow”. Data Analysis The analyses were conducted using the statistical software SPSS v.26. Eight variables were created with the mean value of each of the evaluated constructs, in T1 (i.e., before the intervention) and T2 (i.e., one month after the end of the intervention), and basic descriptive analyses were carried out. Paired-samples T- tests were performed to determine the existence of significant differences in the means of each construct and in each item between the different time points (T1 and T2). Cohen’s d effect sizes (d) were calculated based on the differences of effect sizes between groups. Results Previous conceptions about environmental perception, water respect attitudes and knowledge about the water cycle. The students had an initial mean environmental perception of 3.26. Specifically, the highest scores were on the perceptions about people need plants to live (item 6) and people should take better care of plants and animals (item 10). On the other hand, the lowest scores were on the perceptions about liking to read about plants and animals (item 3) and willingness to help clean up green areas in their neighborhood or nearby (item 14) (see Table 2). The initial means for water respect attitudes were 3.13 and 2.75 in PE and CSE students, respectively. Specifically, in PE, the highest scores were on the attitudes on closing the tap while brushing teeth (item 3) and not leaving the water running when it is not necessary (item 4). The lowest scores were on the attitudes about getting angry when seeing someone playing with water (item 9) and disliking when seeing people using too much water (item 6). In the case of CSE students, similarly, the highest scores were on the attitudes on closing the tap while brushing teeth (item 3) and not leaving the water running when it is not necessary (item 4). And the lowest scores were on the attitudes about getting angry when seeing someone playing with water (item 9) and reusing water to waste less, had the lowest scores (item 7) (see Table 4). Lastly, the initial mean knowledge of the water cycle was 2.79 in PE. Specifically, the highest scores were on the knowledge of the importance of water for all living beings (item 1) and size of pipes (item 4). The 8 lowest scores were on the knowledge of the scarcity of fresh water in Earth for all living beings (item 12) and the fact that after water is used and dirtied, it goes through a purifier, where it is cleaned and returned to the river (item 11). In CSE, the initial mean of knowledge about the water cycle was 2.74. Also, the highest scores were on the in the knowledge of the importance of water for all living beings (item 1) and on the reservoirs on the rivers that store water (item 5). The lowest scores were on the knowledge of the size of pipes (item 9) and the scarcity of fresh water in Earth for all living beings (item 12) (see Tables 6 and 7). Impact on environmental perception There were significant differences in the mean environmental perception. The highest scores were on the perceptions about liking to learn about plants and animals (item 1), liking to read about plants and animals (item 3), plants and animals can be easily harmed by people (item 4), our life would change if there were no trees (item 7), liking to spend time in places where there are plants and animals (item 11), and the ease with which nature can be harmed or damaged by people (item 15) (see Table 2). TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE According to gender, boys showed significant differences in the mean environmental perception. The highest scores were on the perceptions about liking to learn about plants and animals (item 1), liking to read about plants and animals (item 3), plants and animals can be easily harmed by people (item 4), liking to spend time in places where there are plants and animals (item 11), and the ease with which nature can be harmed or damaged by people (item 15). Girls showed significant differences in the mean environmental perception. The highest scores were on the perceptions about the importance of plants and animals for people (item 2) and our life would change if there were no trees (item 7) (see Table 3: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.16553028.v1). Impact on the attitudes of respect for water In general, PE students showed significant differences in several responses. Specifically, the highest scores were on the attitudes on disliking when seeing people using a lot of water (item 6) and getting angry when seeing someone playing with water (item 9). CSE students showed significant differences in the mean water 9 respect attitudes. The highest scores were on the attitudes on willingness to use less water in the shower (item 1), getting angry when seeing someone playing with water (item 9), and willingness to give some money to help protect the environment (item 10) (see Table 4). TABLE 4 ABOUT HERE According to gender, for PE boys, the highest scores were on the attitudes on telling family and friends about the information to protect the environment (item 8) and getting angry when seeing someone playing with water (item 9). For PE girls, the highest scores were on the attitudes on willingness to use less water in the shower (item 1) (see Table 5). For CSE boys, the highest scores were on the attitudes on telling family and friends about the information to protect the environment (item 8), getting angry when seeing someone playing with water (item 9), and willingness to give some money to help protect the environment (item 10). The CSE girls showed significant differences in the mean water respect attitudes. The highest scores were on the attitudes on the reuse of water in order to use less of it (item 7) and getting angry when seeing someone playing with water (item 9) (see Table 5: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.16553028.v1). Impact on the knowledge about the water cycle EP participants showed significant differences in the mean knowledge about the water cycle. The highest scores were on the knowledge of the existence of reservoirs that store water (item 5), the fact that once water is clean and disinfected, it is stored in tanks and pumped (item 7), that it is OK to flush wet wipes, band-aids or chewing gum down the toilet (item 10), after using water and making it dirty, it goes through a water treatment plant, where it is cleaned and returned to the river (item 11), and fresh water is scarce on Earth for all living beings (item 12) (see Table 6). TABLE 6 ABOUT HERE CSE participants showed significant differences in the mean knowledge of the water cycle. The highest scores were on the knowledge of the importance of water for life (item 1), the definition of the water cycle (item 3), the use of decanting (item 8), the fact that it is OK to flush wet wipes, plasters or chewing gum in the toilet (item 11), the fact that after water is used and soiled, it goes through a purifier, where it is 16 Dillon, & A. E. Wals (Eds.), International handbook of research on environmental education. Routledge. https://bit.ly/2K9gXJ2 Grodzińska-Jurczak, M., Stepska, A., Nieszporek, K., & Bryda, G. (2006). Perception of environmental problems among pre-school children in Poland. International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, 15(1), 62–76. https://doi.org/10.2167/irgee187.0 Hueso, K. (2017). Somos Naturaleza: Un viaje a nuestra esencia. Plataforma. https://bit.ly/35DZGQv IGU-CGE. 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Differences between T1 and T2 in the Water Respect Attitudes Scale. 22 Table 6. Differences between T1 and T2 in the Water Cycle Scale for PE. 23 Table 7. Differences between T1 and T2 in the Water Cycle Scale for CSE.