Children's Role in Meaning Making Through Their Participation in an Environmental Education Program

The authors conducted an ethnography investigating children's lived experiences in a 3-day residential environmental education (EE) program with 20 gifted 4th- and 5th-grade students. The authors also conducted participant observation and a series of interviews before, during, and after the tri...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of environmental education 2008-07, Vol.39 (4), p.44-59
Main Authors: James, J. Joy, Bixler, Robert D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academically Gifted
Children & youth
choice
Cognitive Development
Comprehension
Data collection
Elementary School Students
Environmental Education
Ethnography
Families & family life
Field Trips
Grade 4
Grade 5
Interpersonal Relationship
Interviews
Learning
Learning Experience
Leisure Time
Participant Observation
Prior Learning
residential programs
School systems
Sensory Experience
social influences
Social interaction
Student Role
Students
Teaching Methods
Units of study
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Description
Summary:The authors conducted an ethnography investigating children's lived experiences in a 3-day residential environmental education (EE) program with 20 gifted 4th- and 5th-grade students. The authors also conducted participant observation and a series of interviews before, during, and after the trip. After the authors conducted the interviews and collected other data, they conducted analyses that identified domains describing the children's lived experience with a residential EE program (J. P. Spradley, 1979). Through domain analysis, a theme emerged: Children's nonformal environmental-learning experience is negotiated through the feeling of having choices and enhanced through sensory perception and personal relationships. Explicit recognition of the importance of informal social interactions, unstructured time and play, and perception of choice has potential to enhance the meaningfulness of residential EE programs.
ISSN:0095-8964
1940-1892
DOI:10.3200/JOEE.39.4.44-59