초등학교에서 환경체험학습이 환경 친화적 행동에 미치는 영향

The Influences of Environmental Experience Learning on Elementary School Children’s Pro-environmental Behavior

This study was carried out to examine the influence of environmental experience learning for the elementary school children on the pro-environmental behavior. The subjects of the study consisted of 250 elementary school children in 5th and 6th grades from two schools in Jeju-do which are situated in very similar natural and cultural circumstances. One of them was designated as the experimental group which took part in environmental experience learning, and the other as the comparative group which performed only classroom-oriented learning. The program for environmental experience learning was made up of the following 4 types of activities: environment exploring activities, environment observing activities, nature experiencing play activities, and making activities with waste materials. The time used for these activities were taken from that for free activities, special activities, tour activities, extra-curricular activities, etc. The results of the study were based on the statistical analysis of the 492 questionnaires obtained from the 250 children questioned twice, before and after the experiment, with 4 invalid questionnaires excluded. They are summarized as follows: Comparing the mean values of the experimental group and the comparative group, it was indicated that the pre-experiment showed slight differences, but the post-experiment showed big differences. In particular, the arrival point of environmental education showed the most significant difference in the section of environment-protective behaviors. The pre and post t-test results of both groups indicated that the experimental group showed significant differences but the comparative group did not. Particularly in the section of environment-protective behaviors, which was probably the visible effect of environmental education, the experimental group showed significant differences in all of the items, but the comparative group showed no significant differences.