Impact and outcomes
How do we know this works?
Our programs are built on Earth Education, a movement with a measurable record of changing how young people understand, feel about and act in the natural world.
Earth Education
A harmonious, joyful coexistence with nature
Earth Education is dedicated to fostering a harmonious and joyful coexistence between humanity and the natural environment. Originating from Steve Van Matre’s pioneering work on Acclimatization in the 1970s, this educational movement is committed to building programs that empower individuals to develop a deep ecological understanding, nurture affirmative emotions, and inspire personal initiative.
Distinct from methods that merely incorporate environmental concepts into existing curricula, Earth Education takes a systematic approach. Our programs are crafted as enchanting educational odysseys: they begin from the participant’s current understanding, immerse them in dynamic, hands-on learning amidst nature, and then thread those outdoor experiences back into daily life at school and home.
Head, heart and hands
Three things every program holds together
Head
A deep ecological understanding, built from the participant’s current understanding outward, never assumed.
Heart
Affirmative emotions for the natural world: wonder, care and a felt connection rather than names and numbers.
Hands
Personal initiative carried home, woven back into daily routines at school and at home.
The research
Decades of evidence, not assertion
In the 1980s and 1990s, several small-scale research projects examined earth education programs. Most were qualitative, done as master’s theses and never published. Two were: Greenall Gough (1990) conducted a case study of an Earthkeepers program, and Keen (1991) ran a mixed-methods study of a Sunship Earth program.
Over the last twenty years, far more has been published. Studies of the Earthkeepers program (Činčera & Johnson, 2013; Manoli et al., 2014) and the Sunship Earth program (Johnson & Manoli, 2008) found significant increases in students’ understanding of ecological concepts, in pro-environmental attitudes and values, and in self-reported pro-environmental behaviour.
Baierl et al. (2021, 2022) found consistent increases in both knowledge and attitude, along with interesting relationships between the two, across Earthkeepers, Sunship Earth and Sunship III. In a longitudinal study of students who completed three consecutive programs over a four-year period, Johnson and Činčera (2019) traced how participants’ understanding of ecological concepts deepened over time. The record is consistent: ecological understanding rises, attitudes shift, and behaviour follows.
The standard we hold ourselves to
Evaluating an outdoor centre
This is the checklist a genuine earth education centre should pass. Each item is worth ten points. Rate your local centre, including this one, and see if it makes the grade.
- 1
Directors and staff clearly model environmentally-sound practices and lifestyles (or there is evidence that they are working on them).
10 pts - 2
Programs are designed with specific outcomes in mind and use stimulating educational techniques and tools to pull, instead of pushing, the learners.
10 pts - 3
Everything works together, and visitors and participants are oriented to the sequential and cumulative ways in which they can proceed.
10 pts - 4
Programs and exhibits focus on major ecological concepts, such as energy flows and cycling, and connect these processes to the daily lives of participants and visitors.
10 pts - 5
Facilities are environmentally-sound in design and operation (or are being retrofitted to become more so).
10 pts - 6
Programs and exhibits challenge participants and visitors to make changes in their own lives, and model possible choices for them to consider.
10 pts - 7
The overall atmosphere conveys great care and concern about the earth’s places and processes, while promoting a sense of wonder and adventure for natural areas (emphasising magic and meaning instead of names and numbers).
10 pts - 8
Programs serve as carefully crafted, focussed springboard experiences in ecological understanding and feeling, that must be completed later back at home and school.
10 pts - 9
Regular workshops or courses are offered in crafting more harmonious lifestyles (organic gardening, environmentally-responsible investing, modifying homes, and so on).
10 pts - 10
The characteristics above dominate the overall feel of the place, from entrance to exit, with few if any discordant notes (unnecessarily caged animals, environmentally-unsound materials and practices, racks of trinkets for sale, and the like).
10 pts
References
The work behind the claims
- Baierl, T.-M., Johnson, B., & Bogner, F. X. (2021). Assessing environmental attitudes and cognitive achievement within 9 years of informal earth education. Sustainability, 13, 3622.
- Baierl, T.-M., Johnson, B., & Bogner, F. X. (2022). Informal earth education: Significant shifts for environmental attitude and knowledge. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 819899.
- Činčera, J., & Johnson, B. (2013). Earthkeepers in the Czech Republic: Experience from the implementation process. Envigogika, 8(4), 1–14.
- Činčera, J., Johnson, B., & Kroufek, R. (2020a). Outdoor environmental program leaders’ theories of experiential learning. Cambridge Journal of Education, 50, 729–745.
- Činčera, J., Johnson, B., Kroufek, R., Kolenaty, M., & Simonova, P. (2020b). Frames in outdoor environmental education programs: What we communicate and why we think it matters. Sustainability, 12, 4451.
- Činčera, J., Johnson, B., Kroufek, R., & Simonova, P. (2020c). Values education in outdoor environmental education programs from the perspective of practitioners. Sustainability, 12, 4700.
- Činčera, J., Simonova, P., Kroufek, R., & Johnson, B. (2020d). Empowerment in outdoor environmental education: Who shapes the programs? Environmental Education Research, 26, 1690–1706.
- Felix, L., & Johnson, B. (2013). Back in the classroom: Teacher follow-through after an earth education program. Applied Environmental Education & Communication, 12(3), 187–196.
- Greenall Gough, A. (1990). Red and green: Two case studies in learning through ecopolitical action. Curriculum Perspectives, 10(2), 60–65.
- Johnson, B. (2023). Earth Education: Magical Learning Adventures for Living More Lightly. In: Činčera, J., Johnson, B., Goldman, D., Alkaher, I., Medek, M. (eds) Outdoor Environmental Education in the Contemporary World. International Explorations in Outdoor and Environmental Education, vol 12. Springer, Cham.
- Johnson, B., & Činčera, J. (2015). Examining the relationship between environmental attitudes and behaviour in education programmes. Socialni Studia, 12(3), 97–111.
- Johnson, B., & Činčera, J. (2019). Development of the ecological concepts of energy flow and materials cycling in middle school students participating in earth education programs. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 63, 94–101.
- Johnson, B., & Činčera, J. (2021). Relationships between outdoor environmental education program characteristics and children’s environmental values and behaviors. Journal of Adventure Education & Outdoor Learning.
- Johnson, B., & Činčera, J. (2022). Earthkeepers: The relationship between instructional strategies and program outcomes. Envigogika, 17, 1.
- Johnson, B., & Manoli, C. (2008). Using Bogner and Wiseman’s model of ecological values to measure the impact of an earth education program on children’s environmental perceptions. Environmental Education Research, 14(2), 115–127.
- Keen, M. (1991). The effect of the Sunship earth program on knowledge and attitude development. Journal of Environmental Education, 22(3), 28–32.
- Manoli, C. C., Johnson, B., Hadjichambis, A. C., Paraskeva-Hadjichambi, D., Georgiou, Y., & Ioannou, H. (2014). Evaluating the impact of the Earthkeepers earth education program on children’s ecological understandings, values and attitudes, and behaviour in Cyprus. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 41, 29–37.
- Van Matre, S. (1972). Acclimatization. American Camping Association.
- Van Matre, S. (1979). Sunship earth. Institute for Earth Education.
- Van Matre, S. (1990). Earth education: A new beginning. Institute for Earth Education.
- Van Matre, S. (2019). Earthwalks: An alternative nature experience. Institute for Earth Education.
- Van Matre, S., & Farber, L. (2005). Rangers of the earth. Institute for Earth Education.
- Van Matre, S., & Johnson, B. (1988). Earthkeepers: Four keys for helping young people live in harmony with the earth. The Institute for Earth Education.
- Van Matre, S., & Johnson, B. (1997). SUNSHIP III: Perception and choice for the journey ahead. The Institute for Earth Education.
See the approach in action
Our school programs and camp-outs put this research to work on the mountain, with real landscapes and real hands in the dirt.