Fascination with fireworks and pyrotechnics can be used for educational purposes. Several aspects of pyrochemistry such as redox reactions, flame colors, or the theory of combustion can be incorporated in the curriculum to illustrate some basic chemical principles, guaranteeing a lesson that will be engaging and memorable. Beyond classic…

This study explores how adding environmental perspectives to a developmental chemistry course affected student learning of both general chemistry and environmental chemistry concepts. In addition to measuring learning changes, changes in students' environmental attitudes and behaviors were also measured. A pretest-posttest design measured…

"Paradise Lost" explores the themes of human frailty, failure, and redemption following humanity's "original sin," eating of the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. This original sin resulted in human beings being banished from an earthly paradise and compelled to wander eternally a world fraught with danger, despair,…

In this paper we attempt to integrate environmental education, with a focus on building capacity at the level of the individual, with frameworks for resilience, with a focus on adaptive capacity at the level of the social-ecological system. Whereas previous work has focused on enhancing system-level capacity through building adaptive capacity in…

Students at Fort Berthold Community College (FBCC) have spent their entire lives hearing about the environmental issues facing the Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara). Located on the high plains of northwestern North Dakota, the area contains rich coal and oil resources, the development of which can damage air and water quality.…

On April 20, 2010, an offshore oil-drilling platform exploded, spilling millions of gallons of oil into the gulf. From Louisiana to the Gulf Coast of Florida the effects are being felt by fisherman, shrimpers, dive charters, and other hardworking folks who depend on the water for their livelihood. But there is another population in these coastal…

Place-based ecocritical pedagogy (PBEP) has been a key part of ecocriticism since the 1980s. In the last 10 years, the critical, theoretical, scientific and philosophical assumptions with which it has been associated have been subject to sustained critique, and yet PBEP remains the dominant model in pedagogical thinking within the field. In…

The integration of Earth Charter into everyday practice of schools in Germany has to be combined with the curriculum development in different subjects. Two states of Germany started this process by organizing inservice training for primary and secondary teachers. Additionally they translated and adopted the Earth Charter Teachers Guidebook to…

This study focuses on the pre-service teachers' reflection on an environmental knowledge questionnaire administered in an introductory environmental education course. Reflection sheets that addressed pre-/post-course knowledge questionnaires were collected from 75 students who took the course in three consecutive years. The students represented…

At Montpelier High School (MHS) in Vermont, students are accustomed to making changes in their school and community. Over the last six years, MHS students have participated in the Annual Winooski River Cleanup Project, the construction of a solar-powered greenhouse that provides produce for the school's cafeteria, and a thriving composting program…

Being green means different things to different people. Some suggest that being green means saving energy, not wasting paper towels, going solar, harnessing wind, using less fertilizer, or buying products that are organically grown. Given that being green can mean a lot of things, what does "being green" or "going green" mean to both you and your…

WebQuests and the 5E learning cycle are titans of the science classroom. These popular inquiry-based strategies are most often used as separate entities, but the author has discovered that using a combined WebQuest and 5E learning cycle format taps into the inherent power and potential of both strategies. In the lesson, "Clash of the Titans,"…

The 2010 "Deepwater Horizon" oil spill greatly affected the Gulf Coast, and the news media reported information to wide audiences. Students enrolled in an online Environmental Geoscience course in fall 2010 voluntarily participated in a Gulf oil spill survey. More than 92% of the students (N = 77; 83 total enrollment), who were primarily…

Purpose: The purpose of this research was to assess the knowledge, attitudes and practices of both students and older adults that participated in a service-learning, environmental health education program called Recycling Mentors (RM). Methods: Surveys were conducted before and after participation in RM. Quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS.…

In this study, the learning of science outside the classroom is believe to be an added value to science learning as well as it offers students to interact with the environment. This study presents data obtained from two days' workshop on Lichen as Biological Indicator for Air Quality. The aim of the workshop is for the students to gain an…