A study by researchers from Columbia University, Gateway to the Great Outdoors and Washington University in St. Louis examined how environmental education affects students' understanding of environmental issues and climate change. The team studied the STEM capacity, environmental perceptions and environmental awareness of 335 low-income St. Louis public school students aged nine to 15.

Some of the participants in the study used Photovoice, an educational intervention that enables students to learn about social subjects they may not understand or have any personal experience with. Photovoice uses community member knowledge and perspective to address knowledge gaps in academic research and policymaking. With Photovoice, the user is engaged with a given topic through taking photos and narrative discussions in a focus group.Source: Unsplash

During the study, students were assigned to one of two groups: the Photovoice intervention group or a traditional intervention group. Researchers also evaluated a control group of students who didn’t participate in either intervention.

Students from the Photovoice group were observed to have higher STEM capacity and environmental awareness than the other groups. This change was significantly higher for the Photovoice group over the control group, which saw no improvements.

The researchers say that lack of environmental education is an environmental justice issue. Low-income and non-white students often have less access to nature and greenspace than their high-income and white counterparts. Focus-based education could be one option to help halt or slow human-driven climate change effects, including biodiversity loss, overuse of resources, environmental health disparities, deforestation and more.

The study was published in the International Journal of Qualitative Methods.