ALTERNATIVE ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION PROGRAM FOR SCHOOLS: A NOVEL PEDAGOGY FOR PROMOTING CONNECTEDNESS WITH NATURE AMONG STUDENTS OF GOA-INDIA

Abstract

Goa is part of the Western Ghats biodiversity hotspot and hosts fragile coastal ecosystems, forests, rivers, wetlands, and agrarian landscapes that have historically shaped local livelihoods, belief systems, and cultural practices. However, rapid urbanization, mass tourism, mining activities, infrastructure expansion, and fast-changing lifestyle and consumption patterns have exerted significant ecological pressures on these areas (Barrable, 2019; Bruni et al., 2017; Singh et al., 2024). The Preliminary field investigation conducted by the investigator with class VII students of Dharbandoda taluka of Goa that nestles 12 Secondary schools of Goa revealed that they exhibited high score in Environmental awareness however, they demonstrated low emotional bonding and responsible environmental behaviour. This knowledge- behaviour gap aligns with previous findings of Sivkumar and Sivanandan (2018) who reported similar trends among middle school students in Indian metropolitan cities, and Louv’s (2005) notion of “nature deficit disorder” among contemporary children. The present research study in Environment education addresses the wide gap of “disconnect with nature”  due to their more “connection with screen time” by introducing Alternative Environmental education program (AEEP) to these helpless children, which is a Novel- systematically designed and developed Model by the researcher using ADDIE instructional design model which promotes connectedness with Nature(CWN) by using GECI ( Goa Environmental Connectedness Inventory) as a tool to be administered as pre -test & post -test  among 70 class VII students of Goa through a three weeks long structured intervention program to be implemented  based on  using six different strategies of experiential learning,  emotional learning, collaborative learning, socio-emotional learning, critical inquiry based learning  and contemplative learning by using both indoor and outdoor activities with environmental concepts taken from Goa Board’s NCERT Science textbook of Class VII. The objectives of the present study are 1) To design and develop Alternative Environmental Education Program in promoting connectedness with nature among students of Goa. 2) To study the effectiveness of Alternative Environmental Education Program’s strategies on connectedness with nature of class VII students of Goa. 3) To compare the effectiveness of Alternative Environmental Education Program Strategies and Conventional methods of the teaching-learning process of Environmental education on connectedness with nature of class VII students of Goa 4) To study and find the effect of AEEP strategies on Male and female students on Connectedness with nature of Class VII of Goa. The researcher used True experimental pre-test post-test equivalent group design. The data was collected by using qualitative as well as quantitative methods. The findings of the study demonstrates that there was substantial increase in score in post-test of experimental group as compared to pre-test in cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains of GECI which provided strong empirical evidence supporting the effectiveness of the AEEP strategies in connecting the students with nature administered during the intervention program of the study.