Environmental education (EE) facilitates students' scientific and environmental literacy, and addresses content areas including sustainability, ecology, and civic responsibility. However, U.S. science content compartmentalization and EE's interdisciplinary nature historically made it a fragmented curriculum within U.S. schools. To gain a better…

Residential environmental education centers are important providers of science curriculum, offering students learning experiences outside the traditional classroom. One major criticism of these centers and other nonformal science centers is that they often do not include student outcomes in the evaluation of their programs. The purpose of this…

Rationale for an effective outdoor education program in several Ohio counties is presented. Five general purposes for outdoor education are given: (1) to teach specific knowledge, (2) to use the outdoors as a laboratory, (3) to show man's dependence on nature, (4) to increase appreciation of nature's beauty, and (5) to give the student opportunity…

Investigating the effect of a resident outdoor experience on the attitudes of 300 sixth grade students exposed to two different teaching methods, students from the Brownsville School District in Pennsylvania were randomly assigned to a week-long camp experience. Teachers in the control group (N=3) were given 20 hours of training in outdoor…

Active preparation, participation, and follow up by the classroom teacher are essential to the success of the Outdoor School, a week-long, resident, coeducational program of outdoor education for all Multnomah County, Oregon, sixth grade classes and their teachers. Teacher orientation to the Outdoor School includes an on-site overnight workshop in…