Effects of a Project-Based Learning Methodology on Environmental Awareness of Secondary School Students

Well into the 21st century, the environmental crisis is more relevant than ever. To face this challenge, citizens with pro-environmental attitudes and adequate levels of environmental awareness are needed. As future adult citizens, adolescents should be a priority for environmental educators. The objective of the study is to determine the effectiveness of the Project-Based Learning (PBL) methodology in the improvement of the level of environmental awareness of secondary school students. To this end, a project related to the surrounding environment was designed and applied in the Spanish educational context. The nature of the research methodology was mixed (quantitative-qualitative), with the application of a pretest-posttest single group design. The instrument used was an environmental awareness test with a Likert-type scale and a set of open questions. The results obtained indicate a statistically significant rise in the level of environmental awareness in the participant group-class, leaving the effectiveness of the PBL in the referred level and educative context patent. There were some limitations in the research, including small sample size and the particular conditions of the exposed context, which should be resolved for future research in other educational contexts in order to generalise the findings of this study. Keywords: project based learning, environmental education, environmental awareness, environmental literacy, secondary education, Spain