Project SUSTAIN: Evaluation Methods and Results

• increase teachers’ awareness (knowledge of) sustainability education.
• increase teachers’ willingness to use sustainability education.

• increase students awareness of sustainability issues.
• increase students efficacy toward making a difference in their community in regard to sustainability issues.
• determine if students find sustainability topics interesting and relevant to their lives.

     Quantitative and qualitative evaluation was performed using tools including: Pre/Post Teacher Questionnaires, Teacher Unit Lesson Plans, Teacher Logs, Teacher Interviews, Student Pre/Post tests, Student Interviews, and Student Work.

Student goal: Increase knowledge and awareness of community and environmental issues. Methods and results.

Teacher goal: Increase confidence and intention to use target instruction strategies.
Methods and results.

Overview of evaluation: Process and results in table format.

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Student Goals: Methods and Results

Goal: Increase knowledge and awareness of community and environmental issues.

Method: Pre-post test using a Likert Scale (7 = agree strongly)
(See table below.)

A. I understand how classwork relates to my life.
B. I know a lot about environment issues in my community.
C. I am interested in topics related to the environment.
D. I understand impacts of my actions on the environment.
E. I have a responsibility to help solve problems in my community.
F. I understand that local actions have global impacts.

We asked students: What does sustainability mean to you?

They answered:

• “Keeping things around for your kids.”
  
• “What we need to do to make our world a better place to live.”
  
• “Learning what we can do to help the community.”

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Teacher Goals: Methods and Results

Goal: Increase confidence and intention to use target instruction strategies.

A. Involve students in community
B. Involve students in democratic process-not just observe it.
C. Use role plays, simulations, etc.
D. Have students evaluate different perspectives and their credibility
E. Differentiate content or methods
F. Emphasize connections among content areas.
G. Help students synthesize info./explain results/draw conclusions

Methods: Pre/Post Questionnaires; Lesson Plans; Logs/Interviews

Results: Overall positive trends; The majority rated themselves as high on the 'before' test.

We asked teachers: Of what value, if any, is there in sustainability education for your students?

They answered:

• “Students who don’t think they have much feel rich or like they have a lot. They learn they have much and they have power in themselves.”
  
• “I could really see how these ideas . . . could impact the students’ future choices and decisions and how that would impact their lives.”
  
• “Helps tie things together in a more focused way.”
  
• "It fit in beautifully with the 6th grade curriculum."

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