Exploring environmental identities [electronic resource] : a qualitative study of children's and youth's reflections on residential environmental education experiences
Keywords: Education.

Today's children live in a world where they face increasing environmental challenges and have fewer opportunities than ever before to interact with nature. Environmental education offers a means to address both of these issues, providing young people with opportunities to connect with the natural environment and to develop into environmental stewards. The three papers in this dissertation aim to understand how a particular type of environmental education—residential environmental education—influences participants. Specifically, these papers examine the ways participants understand their experiences in two specific residential environmental education programs and how these experiences influence participants' environmental identities. The first paper examines residential environmental education program elements that are memorable for fourth- and fifth-grade participants and how the young participants perceive that these program elements may relate to changes in themselves. This paper reveals a number of program elements salient and meaningful for participants; the findings also suggest that the unique learning context influences changes in participants' actions and activities, brings about personal growth, and helps facilitate connections with nature and their classmates. Effective and robust environmental education provides holistic experiences that combine direct contact with and experiences in nature, opportunities for social and personal development, and an emphasis on environmentally responsible behavior. The second paper investigates fourth and fifth graders' cultural models of earth stewards and how these cultural models impact whether young people are able to see themselves in the narratives of earth stewardship. This paper suggests that environmental education programs should offer a diverse range of role models as well as images of earth stewards and earth stewardship so more young people can envision themselves within these narratives. The third paper explores environmental identity development among high-school-aged participants of an immersive, two-week course that combines backpacking with scientific research in a national park setting. Applying Kempton and Holland's (2003) model of environmental identity development, this paper demonstrates that participants' environmental identities were influenced, in varying ways, by the natural setting where the program took place, the people with whom participants interacted, and the practices in which they engaged during the program. Building relationships with the natural world and the world of environmental action are both paths to environmental identity development for young people. As such, these findings suggest that environmental education programs should provide experiences that combine opportunities for participants to connect with nature with opportunities to learn about environmental issues as well as engage in actions to address those issues. Environmental educators should also take care to make explicit connections between residential environmental education experiences and participants' home lives; they may consider doing so through presenting expanded narratives of nature coupled with a broad range of stewardship actions.