Awareness and Monitoring in Outdoor Marine Education

Background: This paper examines learning relationships associated with awareness, attitude and participatory action skills in the context of community education programs concerning the marine environment. Purpose: An investigation of the relationship of experiential marine education to environmental knowledge, attitudes and responsible ecological behavior of participating students. Setting: The marine education research related to offshore sites of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia on information taken from August 2002 to November 2003. Study Sample: Survey data was collected from a sample of high school students from five Queensland coastal area schools and relevant community members. Intervention: The paper discusses experiential education, monitoring and learning associated with active participation and actual visits to the reef for monitoring experience. Research Design: Descriptive. Control or Comparison Condition: Different groups of participants were to be compared in order to indicate the relevance of the reef experience and improved leaning outcomes. Data Collection and Analysis: Survey questionnaires were used to collect data in the research, and the analysis included SPSS exploratory statistics and comparison of the means. Findings: Increasing the awareness or improving the knowledge of stakeholders in our communities is important in realizing that a problem exists, but this change appears to do little to rectify ecological problems. As environmental awareness is raised and attitudes improved, minimal changes in associated ecological action skills have followed. Perspectives of participants created an understanding of the extent direct reef experience made in achieving changes in environmental knowledge or an ecological vision. Conclusion: Community-based monitoring programs can help bridge the gap between differing factions in the community, and offer situations where people of varying backgrounds can get involved, establish relationships, learn science and help implement change through interaction with nature. If ecological participatory action is considered important then more work needs to be done to promote it. Community-based monitoring in conjunction with experiential environmental education and can work to improve responsible behavior when used in coordination with a comprehensive education strategy and media campaign. The promotion of outdoor education in the context of coordinated environmental education strategies is an interesting technique to improve participatory outcomes and establish improved ecological behavior in our communities. Citation: Stepath, C. M. (2004). Awareness and Monitoring in Outdoor Marine Education. Presented to Tropical Environment Studies and Geography Conference 2004, James Cook University, Cairns, Australia on June 7. Retrieved from http://saveourseas.org/stepath.htm. (Contains 3 figures.) [This work has been partially supported by the Cairns and Far North Environment Centre (CAFNEC), National Heritage Trust and PADI (Professional Association of Dive Instructors).]