Environmental Education through Documentaries: Assessing Learning Outcomes of a General Environmental Studies Course

Shu-Chiu Liu

doi:10.29333/ejmste/83653

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Shu-Chiu Liu ¹ ^*

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¹ Institute of Education, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, TAIWAN^* Corresponding Author

Abstract

The use of film as supplementary materials in the classroom has become common for higher education teachers of environmental studies. It is, however, rare that film is incorporated as the primary instructional medium. This paper reports a case study on a documentary film-based environmental studies course which sought to engage students in exploring and reflecting on a wide range of locally significant environment issues. While film is the focus of the course, post-film reflective discussion is an integral part in order to help students identify and clarity their thoughts and ideas. A pre and post survey and post-instruction interviews were carried out with two cohorts of university students for the purpose of evaluating this course. The results suggest that, using documentaries to repeatedly expose students to real issues, the course proved to be beneficial to developing students’ perspective-taking and critical thinking abilities and sense of relevance, which collectively leads to a more pro-environmental disposition.

Keywords

case study
documentary films
environmental education
higher education
course evaluation

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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article Type: Research Article

EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed, Volume 14, Issue 4, April 2018, 1371-1381

https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/83653

Publication date: 19 Jan 2018

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How to cite this article

APA

Liu, S.-C. (2018). Environmental Education through Documentaries: Assessing Learning Outcomes of a General Environmental Studies Course. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 14(4), 1371-1381. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/83653

Vancouver

Liu SC. Environmental Education through Documentaries: Assessing Learning Outcomes of a General Environmental Studies Course. EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed. 2018;14(4):1371-81. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/83653

AMA

Liu SC. Environmental Education through Documentaries: Assessing Learning Outcomes of a General Environmental Studies Course. EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed. 2018;14(4), 1371-1381. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/83653

Chicago

Liu, Shu-Chiu. "Environmental Education through Documentaries: Assessing Learning Outcomes of a General Environmental Studies Course". Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education 2018 14 no. 4 (2018): 1371-1381. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/83653

Harvard

Liu, S.-C. (2018). Environmental Education through Documentaries: Assessing Learning Outcomes of a General Environmental Studies Course. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 14(4), pp. 1371-1381. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/83653

MLA

Liu, Shu-Chiu "Environmental Education through Documentaries: Assessing Learning Outcomes of a General Environmental Studies Course". Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, vol. 14, no. 4, 2018, pp. 1371-1381. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/83653