Living on Earth Ecological Literacy Project – Year Three Evaluation

The Living on Earth's Ecological Literacy project (ELP) offers a comprehensive, flexible curricular framework that includes an integrated approach to field-based environmental studies, investigative journalism and computer-based radio production and engineering in middle and high school settings. The 2002-03 school year marked Year Three of the three-year, NSF-funded Ecological Literacy Project. Rockman et al, an educational research firm headquartered in San Francisco, conducted an independent evaluation of the ELP Year Two program activities (Char and Rockman, 2002), and continued evaluation of the Year Three program. The Year Three evaluation was designed to provide project staff with information on how the ELP curriculum was received by teachers and students in five participating schools who constituted the core set of schools that began with the project during Years One or Two. Evaluation activities during Year Three included observations of the Summer Teacher Institute held in August 2002 and post-program student surveys administered to the five schools in May 2003. Teachers were also asked to respond to a teacher survey in June 2003, to offer their feedback and reflections on their ELP experience.