Can we make environmental citizens? A randomised control trial of the effects of a school-based intervention on the attitudes and knowledge of young people

The aim of this study was to determine whether school-based intervention can help in making environmental citizens. A randomised control trial of 448 primary school students and their families in 27 primary schools located in Vale Royal, North West England was carried out between January and July 2008. The interventions were two types of class-based instruction on environmental issues, one long and the other short, which were designed to increase environmental awareness. Environmental attitudes and behaviours were measured by surveys completed by the students in their classes and in their homes before and after the interventions. The analysis reports school averages of the questionnaire responses, followed by regression analysis using robust clustered standard errors. The results show no statistically significant differences between schools in the intervention groups compared to the control group schools. The rising environmental awareness of the control group during the intervention may partly explain the positive results of existing non-experimental studies.