The Development of an Environmental Education Activities Guide and Teacher Inservice Training to Enhance Utilization of a Field Instruction Site

Research in Environmental Education has shown that students are greatly benefiting from EE field instruction to repeated sites for short durations of instruction. The focus of this project was to aid K-6 teachers at Clear Lake Elementary to feel comfortable teaching EE for a half-day at a field instruction site. The project began in the fall of 1993 with a needs assessment survey to determine what factors would influence the teachers (grades K-6) use of the field instruction site. The survey results were used to design an activities guide with grade appropriate activities to be used on a half-day field instruction trip. The survey results also helped to develop an inservice program that would focus on teacher training in EE field instruction, planning an EE field instruction trip, and resources that would be helpful on this type of trip. As a result of the survey Project WILD and Learning Tree were offered in 1995. All the teachers in grades K-6 at Clear Lake Elementary did take their classes on an EE field instruction trip at the chosen site, with twelve of the eighteen teachers evaluating the experience. The results indicated that 100% of those evaluated will return annually to the field instruction site, and most rated the activities selected for their grade level as "excellent"