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Cryptogenic species are those whose native and introduced ranges are unknown. The extent and long history of human migration rendered numerous species cryptogenic. Incomplete knowledge regarding the origin and native habitat of a species poses problems for conservation management and may confound ecological and evolutionary studies. The Lesser Antilles pose a particular challenge with regard to cryptogenic species because these islands have been anthropogenically connected since before recorded history. Here, we use population genetic and phylogeographic tools in an attempt to determine the origin of Eleutherodactylus johnstonei, a frog species with a potentially widespread introduced range and whose native range within the Lesser Antilles is unknown. Based on elevated estimates of genetic diversity and within-island geographic structure not present elsewhere in the range, we identify Montserrat as the native island of E. johnstonei. We also document two major clades within E. johnstonei, only one of which is the primary source of introduced populations throughout the Americas. Our results demonstrate the utility of genetic tools for resolving cryptogenic species problems and highlight E. johnstonei as a potential system for understanding differences in invasive potential among sister lineages.

Do more natural settings improve students' learning? We collected surveys immediately following 283 U.S.-based environmental education (EE) field trip programs for youth and used land cover data to examine the relationship between levels of naturalness, defined as the percentage of natural land cover of the EE field trip site, and student learning outcomes. We also examined whether differences in levels of naturalness between students' day-to-day environment and the field trip setting were related to student learning outcomes. When controlling for grade and race, both levels of naturalness and novel levels of naturalness accounted for approximately 4% of the variance in student outcomes suggesting that other field trip characteristics are more influential.

Which approaches are associated with better student learning outcomes in environmental education (EE)? We observed a sample of 299 day-long EE field trip programs occurring across the U.S.A. for youth in grades 5-8 (ages 9 to 14). We tracked the extent of use and quality of implementation of 66 programmatic, educator, and setting characteristics and measured student outcomes immediately after the programs using a retrospective survey. A series of complementary tests identified 11 characteristics that were most powerfully and consistently associated with learning outcomes, accounting for 18% of variance in learning outcomes. These included group size, naturalness, novelty, place-based pedagogy, verbal engagement, quality questions, transitions, and staging, as well as the responsiveness, comfort and clarity, and emotional support provided by the educator. Some of the most commonly promoted practices in the EE field were rarely observed. Implications are discussed for both practice and research.

Background: Continuing education programs for teachers seek to enhance outcomes for participants and their students. Experiential wilderness-based programs offer outdoor-recreational activities and experiential teaching initiatives. Research needs to be conducted to reveal how they influence individual behaviors. Purpose: This research investigated whether a wilderness-based program influenced individual beliefs and confidence in using experiential teaching methods within a classroom. Methodology/Approach: A pre-, post-, and follow-up closed survey was administered to educators who had participated in the North Carolina Outward Bound Educators Initiative (NCOBEI) 2017-2018. Furthermore, retrospective follow-up surveys were administered to alumni (years 2007-2016). Responses were analyzed to determine how participants integrated learning within the classroom. Findings/Conclusions: Participation positively influenced educators' beliefs, confidence, and intentions to implement experiential techniques within the classroom immediately following the experience, although the benefits diminished over time. Educator beliefs and confidence were poor predictors of using experiential learning in the classroom. Implications: Experiential wilderness-based professional development (PD) has the potential to positively build confidence and skills for use in the classroom. PD and future research should address how to perpetuate the influence of wilderness-based continuing PD programs at the individual and institutional levels.

COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement have changed the social and political landscape in which environmental educators work. To meet these challenges and to assess current training needs, we invited members of three national U.S. organizations to rate 28 different professional competencies in terms of importance and preparedness to perform. Our results showed that educators have the greatest need for training in diversity, equity, and inclusion; and communicating about complex and controversial issues. Additionally, environmental educators prefer training that is delivered through in-person exercises, online courses, and participation in learning communities. This information can help prioritize future professional development.

Many environmental educators shifted to online programs in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted a systematic literature review to identify program characteristics from digital environmental education experiences that are associated with one or more elements of environmental literacy. After reviewing 153 candidate articles, 32 articles that evaluated 47 diverse programs met our selection criteria. For each of these programs, we systematically coded the articles to identify guiding theories, program types, program characteristics, and outcomes assessed. We also identified the authors' explanations and empirical evidence for program characteristics that led to positive outcomes. In this paper, we synthesize the results and present 12 guiding principles that show promise in enhancing outcomes related to environmental literacy in online programs for K-12 students. These principles, which are defined and illustrated with examples from the literature, include: social-ecological connections, relevance, social interactions, role models, autonomy, active involvement, challenge, use of multiple modalities, positive framing, preparation, feedback and reflection.

Evaluation has not been used to its fullest potential in environmental education (EE). Pressures from external stakeholders can cause organizations to focus on reporting requirements at the expense of conducting evaluations that support programmatic improvement. Understanding practitioners' satisfaction with their evaluation processes and the drivers of this satisfaction may reveal strategies for improving evaluation processes in the field of EE. We administered an online survey to EE practitioners in the United States via email and social media. Our results indicate low satisfaction with evaluation processes overall, but greater satisfaction from organizations engaged in systematic "formal" evaluation, particularly processes focused on adaptive management and programmatic improvement, when compared to evaluations focused on satisfying external accountabilities or using "informal" evaluation processes based on nonsystematic observation and reflection. Our results also highlight current gaps in using evaluation for adaptive management and for furthering diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the field.

Despite growing calls for greater inclusivity and cultural responsiveness, little is known about how environmental education (EE) may differentially affect diverse audiences. As part of a national study of 334 environmentally focused day field trips for adolescent youth in the United States in 2018, we examined how outcomes differed for students of different grade levels, racial backgrounds, and socioeconomic status. Participants who were younger, Hispanic, and from lower socioeconomic classes exhibited more positive outcomes than older, non-Hispanic, and wealthier participants. Differences in Hispanic populations are likely at least partially attributable to known survey response biases. We also found that programs with non-White instructors tended to yield higher levels of satisfaction in groups where the student majority was not White. We discuss potential explanations for these trends and call for further research on culturally responsive and age-appropriate approaches to EE.

Theoretically strategic planning improves management activities, employee motivations, and ultimately, organizational performance. Comprehensive interpretive planning, a form of strategic planning, also should theoretically assists organizations that provide interpretive services by identifying audiences, key stories, interpretive themes, and goals regarding visitor experiences. However, many in the field find both the process as well as products associated with strategic planning ineffective. This study sought to examine the influence of strategic planning on strategic management, and the influence of both on workplace conditions, employees' organizational commitment, and organizational performance. We created an online questionnaire and administered it to all National Park Service (NPS) employees with Interpretation & Education responsibilities at any of the 424 NPS units in 2023. Results suggest that strategic plans are important both for employees' commitment to the organization and for the organization's overall performance. Results also suggest that strategic management activities, which include holding employee's accountable for work tasks; regularly seeking to improve programs and services; collaborating with external stakeholders and partners; communicating clear job performance expectations and feedback; having clear goals and measuring performance toward these goals are also important for improving employees' commitment to the organization and for overall performance. The implications for theory and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial integration in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region is a key focus of the ASEAN Economic Community. Whereas many studies focus on modelling corporate default, this paper identifies early warning indicators of financial distress before a default, using multiple discriminant analysis (MDA) models with a sample of listed and delisted companies in the ASEAN region. The analysis examines 720 companies in 10 different industries across six ASEAN countries from 1997 to 2016. The study constructs individual models for each country as well as an overall model for the entire region, using both in‐sample and out‐of‐sample approaches. This overall model could be useful for an integrated banking system. To ensure robustness, the study also separately examines the predictive performance of the MDA models across different economic crises: the Asian financial crisis (AFC) from 1997 to 2000, the global financial crisis (GFC) from 2007 to 2009 and their pre‐ and post‐crisis periods. We find that profitability ratios are the best indicators of financial distress in the ASEAN region, followed by liquidity and leverage ratios. In addition, our findings reveal common indicators that can be used to predict financial distress across ASEAN countries. The single model performs reasonably well in predicting financial distress 1 year ahead. In addition, the model is extended to incorporate a market‐based indicator into the MDA models, the distance to default. However, the inclusion of this indicator does not significantly improve the accuracy of the models in predicting financial distress at listed firms in the ASEAN region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental education (EE) is instrumental in developing environmentally literate citizens with the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to support sustainable development. In the case of EE school field trips in the USA, these experiences also foster learning and skill development that supports meeting state and national educational standards. However, despite the importance of EE field trip programs, not all schools participate. This study explored the barriers to accessibility to EE field trips by conducting semi-structured interviews with EE providers and administrators of middle schools in the Congaree Biosphere Reserve (CBR), South Carolina, USA. We also used geospatial information systems to investigate accessibility spatially. Results suggest that aspatial barriers such as curricular constraints, capacity to plan and lead field trips, costs, and transportation influence participation. The results also suggest that these aspatial barriers are often interlinked and that access to EE field trips is disproportionately allocated to students in private education and urban settings and that rural, poor, minority, underperforming, and English as Second Language students face additional hurdles. We discuss a range of potential solutions to overcoming these barriers that reduce participation in EE field trips in the CBR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States, the two main political parties, Democrats and Republicans, have become increasingly polarized, including with regard to environmental issues. As part of a national study of environmentally focused single-day field trips for early adolescent youth in 2018, we conducted exploratory research to examine how outcomes differed for public school students from different sociopolitical contexts (i.e. predominantly Democratic, Republican, or mixed). Students from wealthier Democratic contexts exhibited less positive outcomes, measured as self-reported changes in environmental literacy, compared to others. The findings suggest that single-day EE field trips in the United States, in their current forms, may be particularly valuable in lower income and more politically conservative contexts, possibly due to the degree of novelty they may provide to these audiences. Meanwhile, EE field trips for students from wealthier Democratic contexts may provide reinforcement rather than meaningful shifts in environmental literacy, suggesting a need for more novel approaches for these audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political polarization in the United States has made many environmental issues strongly partisan, with Democrats largely receptive to environmental messaging and Republicans commonly pitted against it. This phenomenon may have meaningful implications for how environmental education is conducted for people from different sociopolitical contexts. We explored whether certain pedagogical approaches to single-day environmental education field trip programs were linked to better or worse outcomes for early adolescent youth (ages 10–14) from different sociopolitical contexts: majority Republican, majority Democrat, or mixed (roughly even). All observed effect sizes were small with one exception. Play-based pedagogies tended to yield less positive outcomes for students from Republican majority contexts than others, with a medium effect size. The findings suggest that some traditional approaches to play, such as role-playing as animals or pretending to be water droplets, may feel incongruent with the social identities of students from largely Republican communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tour guides play a central role in the implementation of sustainable tourism practices through maximizing tourists' appreciation and enjoyment of the destination and minimizing their negative impacts. Utilizing Stimulus–Organism–Response framework, this study aims to examine how tour guide performance directly and indirectly predicts tourists' pro-environmental behaviour. Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Structural Equation Modelling were used to test a pro-environmental behaviour model using a sample of 396 tourists who visited Serengeti, Lake Manyara, Tarangire national parks and Ngorongoro conservation area in northern Tanzania. The results indicated that tour guides positively and significantly influenced tourists' experience, satisfaction and pro-environmental behaviours. Further, tourists' experience is found to positively mediate the relation between tour guide and pro-environmental behaviour. The study presents managerial implications, limitations and future research directions in light of the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the availability and distribution of single-day environmental education field trip programs for adolescent students across the U.S.? We assessed the spatial accessibility to EE field trip programs for U.S. schools that serve grades 5-8 (ages 10-14) by (1) compiling a comprehensive national database of 2,930 EE providers that offer field trip programs, (2) identifying 89, 311 middle schools' locations, student populations, and relevant demographic information, and (3) calculating drive times between schools and EE provider locations using a high-performance computing cluster. We then used the integrated Floating Catchment Area method to calculate each school's relative spatial access to EE field trip providers. Results suggest that spatial access was highly spatially clustered, particularly around several geographic regions (coastal California metropolitan areas, the southern Rockies, northern Kentucky, North Carolina, the western shore of Lake Michigan, and the high-density, contiguous metropolitan areas of the Northeast). Spatial access was also strongly related to partisan lean and urbanity, with more rural, White, and Republican-leaning areas generally having significantly less spatial access to EE field trips. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do preparation and perceived support from guardians and teachers influence student attendance to a residential environmental education (EE) field trip program? To explore this question, pre-visit surveys were administered to racially diverse sixth-grade students at seven schools invited to attend a residential EE program at no cost, namely NorthBay Education in North East, Maryland, USA. Results indicate that while desire to attend the residential camp did not differ by students' racial identity, Black and Latinx students were less likely to attend the program. Guardian support to attend and logistical preparation were each positively related to student attendance, irrespective of racial group, with Latinx students reporting the lowest levels of guardian support to attend. Black student attendance was also correlated with geographic and psychological preparation. Tailoring pre-trip preparation and engagement to address the unique needs of each schools' student body is likely needed to promote student attendance. However, these results indicate that inequities in program attendance persist across racial groups and further investigation into program conception, design, communication, and execution is needed to understand and address this concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]