Investigating the longer-term student outcomes of a two-day ocean-focused program for underserved youth in Cape Town, South Africa -- Ocean Literacy: The Foundation for the Success of the Ocean Decade
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Title: Investigating the longer-term student outcomes of a two-day ocean-focused program for underserved youth in Cape Town, South Africa Abstract: In this chapter, we will present an evaluation case study highlighting the longer-term student outcomes from participation in the Ocean Guardians Workshop (OGW) program in Cape Town, South Africa. This two-day field-based program for underserved 7th grade youth, led by the I AM WATER: Ocean Conservation organization, includes student visits to two marine protected areas where they snorkel in the ocean, conduct ecological investigations, perform service learning, and more. These programs are taught by trained educators employed by the organization, many of whom reside in the same communities as these participating students. Using a participatory approach, we worked with the organization to develop pre-, post-, and follow-up (four months later) mixed-methods student surveys measuring diverse outcomes including elements of ocean literacy, attitudes towards the environment and ocean, self-efficacy, learning, social-emotional skills, behaviors, and more. We will focus on the longer-term outcomes for 266 students (from six schools) who completed the pre-, post-, and follow-up surveys which represents a 79% response rate of all total student participants from the 2023 program year. Findings suggest overall positive longer-term programmatic impacts of the students but particularly for outcomes in the affective domain. Student mean scores related to attitudes towards the ocean were statistically significantly higher immediately after the program and also four months later when compared to pre-survey levels. We also collected data on students’ behavioral intentions on the pre- and post-surveys and were able to track how many students acted upon those intentions four months after the program. We will share students voices and qualitatively coded themes as over 79% of students self-reported they had performed actions related to: helping to protect the ocean, spending more time outside, talking with others about ways to protect the ocean, picking up trash, visiting a beach, and learning more about the ocean. We will also share thematically coded open-ended data representing students written responses to their feelings towards the ocean, what they learned in the OGW program, their intentions to have an ocean-related career, and their thoughts on ocean stewardship four months after their participation. We will situate these findings within the goals of the broader fields of environmental education, ocean literacy, and the Ocean Decade Challenge 10 as many of the OGW programmatic elements, and the outcomes we measured in this case study, align very closely these goals. For example, the students who participate in this program report positive changes in their relationship with the ocean (Challenge #10), which for many, began with a fear of the ocean and ended with a love for the ocean. We will also discuss how the organization built their evaluation capacity through our collaborative work and provide lessons learned and recommendations for other organizations to use in their own work. Outline: We will begin with a brief introduction focusing on program evaluation, particularly the dearth of longer-term evaluation studies and background for other studies measuring outcomes related to ocean literacy, learning, social-emotional learning skills, attitudes towards the ocean and environment, behavioral intentions, and more to prepare the reader for the diverse range of outcomes measured in this project. We will provide a complete, but concise, description of the OGW program and move into our Methods section which will include the participatory approach used to developing these surveys, how the organization built their evaluation capacity to administer surveys and enter survey data, and finally our sample for this case study. We will share results of our mixed methods analyses with an emphasis on the students’ voices through their written responses to explore the longer-term outcomes of participation in this project to showcase this example of a program with positive longer-term outcomes related to ocean literacy and much more. We will conclude with how these findings are related to, and build upon, what we already know in the field along with the limitations of our work and future opportunities. Bios:* Dr. B. Troy Frensley is an associate professor in the Environmental Sciences department at the University of North Carolina Wilmington where he teaches courses in environmental education, environmental interpretation in protected areas, global environmental issues, human dimensions of natural resources management, and environmental nonprofit organizations. He also manages the Master of Science Degree concentrations in Environmental Education and Marine and Coastal Education for the department. He has coordinated research and evaluation projects with external grantors including the National Forest Service, North American Association for Environmental Education, NorthBay Education Foundation, Association of Nature Center Administrators, National Park Service, National Park Foundation, The Orton Foundation, Moore Charitable Trust, National Science Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the Institute for Museum and Library Services. He has collaborated on multi-year environmental education, marine and coastal education, program evaluation, and citizen science research with colleagues to understand what leads to success in environmentally-focused programs and experiences for diverse audiences. Ms. Hannah Bell is a lecturer in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and also serves as the coordinator for the Introduction to Environmental Sciences lab courses for all undergraduate EVS students. She has an extensive background in environmental education in formal, nonformal, and informal learning contexts with diverse audiences and is interested in environmental education, ocean literacy, program evaluation, and effective teaching approaches for diverse audiences and in diverse contexts. She conducted her master’s level research with Dr. Frensley on this I AM WATER Ocean Guardians Workshop evaluation and has remained engaged in this collaborative work presenting at conferences, workshops, meetings, and communicating about the importance of environmental and marine education, program evaluation, and adaptive management. *Note, if the abstract is accepted, we plan to include at least one staff member from the I AM WATER organization as a co-author on this chapter to include their important perspectives and voice(s) about the Ocean Guardians Workshop and this collaborative evaluation project.
