A Program Evaluation of Connecticut Project Learning Tree Educator Workshops

Abstract

Project Learning Tree (PLT) is a national environmental education curriculum designed to help formal and informal educators integrate environmental education across disciplines and within the context of state curriculum standards. This program evaluation quantifies the impacts of Project Learning Tree educator workshops on the frequency and quality of environmental education taught in Connecticut. Data was collected through surveys of past Connecticut workshop participants (n=34) and a control group of public school educators (n=445). Analytic methods included negative binomial regression and ordered logit models. Workshop participation was not found to be a significant predictor of the extent or quality of environmental education in Connecticut. Only three variables were found to be significant (α = .05) predictors of increased environmental education in Connecticut’s public schools: educator’s age, educator’s contractual responsibility for science education, and working at a school with an institutional commitment to sustainability. Ordered logit model results also show that science educators have the greatest self-reported confidence levels in integrating environmental education and require the least amount of effort to prepare and teach environmental lessons.