In January of 2017, the Green and Healthy Schools Academy (GHSA) and the CREATE Lab at Carnegie Mellon University decided to explore a compelling question: how can we incite engagement between students and topics of sustainability in an effective and equitable way? After a period of collaborative discussion, our programs created a brief survey that was sent to schools across the Tri-State Area in order to understand which schools have or are interested in extracurricular clubs or programs that center on topics such as the environment, sustainability, environmental justice, and other similar ideas. This survey was created with the belief that exposure to real world environmental issues in a scholastic setting is integral to the development of civic-minded individuals that are able to identify and intervene in complex problems with constructive, creative, and environmentally just solutions.
As of May 1st, our survey was completed by over 85 school educators and administrators across the Tri-State area. Listed below are a few interesting trends that we found in the responses:
As of May 1st, our survey was completed by over 85 school educators and administrators across the Tri-State area. Listed below are a few interesting trends that we found in the responses:
- Over 75% of the clubs surveyed are less than five years old, with 60% of those clubs being less than three years old.
- 45% of surveyed clubs meet once per week whereas 30% meet monthly.
- Over 90% of the programs surveyed desire a collaborative relationship with each other as means of sharing resources, interests, as well as to foster connections between different schools.
- The activities with the highest interest levels, namely “community service”, “field trips”, and “ambassadors to the rest of the school”, are all forms of hands-on and experiential learning.
- The three topics that garnered the highest interest are, “food production’, “recycling and waste diversion”, and ‘energy conservation”. These interests are reflected in many of the responses given by the clubs surveyed that mentioned school gardening programs or recycling teams.
Figure 1: Responses derived from Question 11: “What kinds of activities would you and your students be interested in?”
Figure 2: Responses derived from Question 12: What topics are you and your schools most interested in?
As more results from our survey come in, we grow increasingly excited by both the passion and potential that we see in the students and educators that participate in these clubs. However, our excitement is tempered by the numerous limitations faced by clubs all across our service area. Primarily, we’ve discovered that funding is a major inhibitor of school programs. Over 55% of the clubs surveyed do not receive funding from either their school or school district, thereby resulting in the need for teachers to cover material, transportation, and staffing costs out of pocket.
Our hope is to identify systems-level solutions that can provide benefit to a wide spectrum of schools and initiatives, since realistically we won’t be able to marshal the resources and capacity to fully meet the individual needs of each school. The results we gather from our survey directly impact our course of action so if you are an educator, school administrator, or school facility manager who would like to be a part of the work that we are doing, please feel free to reach out to Ben Hochstetler at benh@gbapgh.org or Andrew Ellsworth at andrewe@gbapgh.org
Click below to view the full report.
Our hope is to identify systems-level solutions that can provide benefit to a wide spectrum of schools and initiatives, since realistically we won’t be able to marshal the resources and capacity to fully meet the individual needs of each school. The results we gather from our survey directly impact our course of action so if you are an educator, school administrator, or school facility manager who would like to be a part of the work that we are doing, please feel free to reach out to Ben Hochstetler at benh@gbapgh.org or Andrew Ellsworth at andrewe@gbapgh.org
Click below to view the full report.
| Environmental Club Survey Results |
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