Environmental education and understanding: The case for elementary students in Monteverde, Costa Rica

Education is the key to preserving biodiversity throughout the world. Not just education, but the environment in which the education takes place. In an attempt to compare the effectiveness of the environmental education program, I surveyed the 5th and 6 th grade students at four of the area schools in Monteverde, Costa Rica. I also talked to the teachers about the curriculum and made visual observations of the classroom settings. I found that the Monteverde Friends School, Quaker school, and Creative Learning Center, environmental education school, had better scores than the public or Adventist schools, but that their demographics were very different. The main differences were the ratio of Costa Ricans to non-Costa Ricans and the average monthly income for the families. The CEC and the public school, however, had very similar populations, and different test results. Since children with very similar backgrounds get such different results, it has to mean that something else is influencing them. My results show that the school is the other influencing factor and therefore, that environmental education can and does work. Educación ambiental es muy importante para preservar la biodiversidad en todo el mundo. No solo la educación, pero los aulas donde los estudiantes tienen que aprender. Yo compare la educación ambiental, con una entrevista, en los quinto y sexto grados en cuatro escuelas en Monteverde, Costa Rica. También, yo pregunte los profesores sobre que tienen que enseñar y observe que pasa en los aulas en todos de los escuelas. Yo encontré que la Escuela Amigas Monteverde y el Centro de Educación Creativa tuvieron más conocimiento del ambiente que la Escuela Pública Santa Elena y la Adventista. La Escuela Amigas Monteverde y el Centro de Educación Creativa tuvieron personas con historias muy diferentes. El Centro de Educación Creativa y la Escuela Pública Santa Elena tuvieron personas con historias muy similares, pero los estudiantes en el CEC tuvieron más conocimiento del ambiente que los estudiantes en la escuela Pública. Por eso sabemos que el educación ambiental tiene influencia de los estudiantes.https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/tropical_ecology/1492/thumbnail.jp