Abstract
Today’s utmost concern about the sustainability of our planet has made environmental education an even more imperative tool for changing our behavior to an optimal one. Environmental summer camps could help children to become acquainted with natural environment and to develop environmental ethics. Environmental summer camps are considered to increase participants’ consciousness by promoting environmental conservation and sustainability skills. The current research was conducted in summer of 2017 at a northern Greece mountainous region with rich natural heritage, known as Nestorio. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of promoting sustainable development through a weeklong environmental summer camp known as “Skyros Project”.
Keywords
The specific project is an educational and communicational program, implemented by the University of the Aegean in collaboration with the Skyros Port Authority, aiming to increase the environmental awareness of local communities towards sustainable development. An administered survey provided results in order to assess knowledge and environmental awareness, prior to and after completion of this summer camp, using face-to-face interviews with participants. Recommendations on the effectiveness of Skyros Project were the outcome of the trial of this summer camp at Nestorio area.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Alaydin E, Demirel G, Altin S, Altin A (2014) Environmental knowledge of primary school students: Zonguldak (Turkey) example. Procedia—Soc Behav Sci 141:1150–1155
Apostolopoulou S, Grigoroglou G, Karamperis M, Skanavis C, Kounani, A (2016) Environmental summer camp in a Greek Island. In: Proceedings of the 13th international conference on Protection and Restoration of the Environment, Mykonos Island, Greece, 3–8 July 2016, pp 1024–1030
Ballantyne R, Packer J (2009) Introducing a fifth pedagogy: experience-based strategies for facilitating learning in natural environments. Environ Educ Res 15(2):243–262. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504620802711282
Ballantyne R, Packer J (2011) Using tourism free-choice learning experiences to promote environmentally sustainable behavior: the role of post-visit ‘action resources’. Environ Educ Res 17(2):201–215
Barth M, Godemann J, Rieckmann M, Stoltenberg U (2007) Developing key competencies for sustainable development in higher education. Int J Sustain High Educ 8(4):416–430
Bialeschki MD, Fine SM, Bennett T (2016) The camp experience: learning through the outdoors. In: Humberstone B, Prince H, Henderson KA (eds) Routledge international handbook of outdoor studies, 1st edn, Chapter 22. Routledge/Taylor and Francis Group, London and New York, pp. 227–235
Cheng JC, Monroe MC (2012) Connection to nature: children’s affective attitude toward nature. Environ Behav 44(1):31–49. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916510385082
Collado S, Staats H, Corraliza AJ (2013) Experiencing nature in children’s summer camps: affective, cognitive and behavioural consequences’. J Environ Psychol 33:37–44
Dori YJ, Herscovitz O (1999) Question-posing capability as an alternative evaluation method: analysis of an environmental case study. J Res Sci Educ 36(4):411–430
Environmental Education Center of Kastoria (KPE Kastorias) (2016) 99 questions on climate change and related issues. Retrieved 1 Mar 2016 from http://kpe-kastor.kas.sch.gr/climate_change/index.htm
Falk JH, Storksdieck M (2005) Learning science from museums. História, Ciências, Saúde-Manguinhos, vol 12, pp 117–144
Garner MA, Doster Taft E, Stevens LC (2015) Do children increase their environmental consciousness during summer camp? A comparison of two programs. J Outdoor Recreation Educ Leadersh 7(1):20–34
Hadlock TD, Beckwith JA (2002) Providing incentives for endangered species recovery. Hum Dimensions Wildl 7(3):197–213
Hanna G (1995) Wilderness-related environmental outcomes of adventure and ecology education programming. J Environ Educ 27(1):21–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/00958964.1995.9941968
Kassas M (2002) Environmental education: biodiversity. Environmentalist 22(4):345–351
Kolb DA (1984) Experiential learning: experience as the source of development. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ
Leal Filho W (2009) Communicating climate change: challenges ahead and action needed’. Int J Clim Change Strat Manag 1(1):6–18
Mayer F, Frantz C (2004) The connectedness to nature scale: a measure of individuals’ feeling in community with nature. J Environ Psychol 24:503–515
Mrema K (2008) An assessment of students’ environmental attitudes and behaviors and the effectiveness of their school recycling programs. Theses of Dalhousie University, School of Resource and Environmental Studies, Halifax, NS
Municipality of Nestorio (2018) Retrieved in 2 Dec 2017 from http://www.nestorio.gr/
Murphy T (2004) A survey of adult environmental knowledge, attitudes and behavior. Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance, Minnesota Report Card on Environmental Literacy, p 94
Okur-Berberoglu E, Ozdilek HG, Yalcin- Ozdilek S, Eryaman MY (2014) The short term effectiveness of an outdoor environmental education on environmental awareness and sensitivity of in-service teachers. Int Electron J Environ Educ 5(1):1–20
Orams MB (1995) Using interpretation to manage nature-based tourism. J Sustain Tourism 4(2):81–94
Palmer JA (1998) Environmental education of the 21st century: theory, practice, progress and promise. Routledge, London, pp 267–277
Pollaki SP, Skanavis C (2015) Environmental education in action: the case study of WWF “school program” in Greece, innovation in environmental education: ICT and intergenerational learning. In: International conference proceedings, Firenze, Italy
Simpson B (1998) Environmental awareness survey. Global Issues in Language Education 30:12–14 [reprinted by permission from Green Teacher Magazine 27 (p. 10)], Available at http://gilesig.org/30Sur.htm
Skanavis C, Kounani A (2017) Diving ecotourism as an educating tool for encouraging sustainable development: the case of Skyros Island. In: Proceedings of innovation Arabia 10: health and environment conference, Dubai, pp 188–197
Skanavis C, Kounani, A (2018) Children communicating on climate change: the case of a summer camp at a Greek Island. In: Leal Filho W et al. (eds) Handbook in climate change communication, vol 3, pp 113–130
Smeds P, Smeds E, Kurppa S, Vieraankivi ML (2011) Rural camp school eco learn—outdoor education in rural settings. Int J Environ Sci 6(3):267–291
Stevenson RB (2007) Schooling and environmental education: contradictions in purpose and practice. Environ Educ Res 13(2):139–153
Storksdieck M, Ellenbogen K, Heimlich JE (2005) Changing minds? reassessing outcomes in free-choice environmental education. Environ Educ Res 11(3):353–369
Strazdins L, Skeat H (2011) Weathering the future: climate change, children and young people, and decision making. A report to the Australian research alliance for children and youth
Trexler CJ (2000) A qualitative study of urban and suburban elementary student understandings of pest-related science and agricultural education benchmarks. J Agric Educ 41(3):89–102
Wells N, Lekies K (2006) Nature and the life course: pathways from childhood nature experiences to adult environmentalism. Child Youth Environ 16:2–25
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Skanavis, C. et al. (2020). Implementing Sustainable Development Through Environmental Camps: The Case of Skyros Project. In: Leal Filho, W., Tortato, U., Frankenberger, F. (eds) Universities and Sustainable Communities: Meeting the Goals of the Agenda 2030. World Sustainability Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30306-8_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30306-8_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-30305-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-30306-8
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)