Advancing pro‐environmental attitudes and behaviors for youth through environmental education: Examining developmental and environmental outcomes from a residential summer camp

Abstract

Residential youth programs provide a promising environment for delivering natural sciences and environmental education in socially rich, informal learning settings. The purpose of this study was to examine youths’ social and personal developmental outcomes and pro‐environmental attitudes and behaviors following participation in an environmental education experience embedded within a 4‐day Louisiana 4‐H residential Summer Camp Program. Using an ex post facto, quasi‐experimental design, camper responses to the American Camp Association's Camper Learning Scale (CLS) and the Children's Environmental Perceptions Scale were analyzed alongside selected demographic characteristics to address the study's four objectives. Descriptive analyses indicated that participants reported meaningful social–personal development and strong pro‐environmental orientations following completion of the wetland's environmental education track. Correlational and exploratory regression analyses indicated that gender was significantly associated with social–personal outcomes, with female participants reporting higher scores overall. Findings indicated that participants reported strong pro‐environmental orientations following completion of the environmental education track, alongside moderate overall scores in social and personal development, suggesting that structured environmental education delivered within residential youth settings can support both environmental and developmental learning outcomes. The results further demonstrated that most demographic characteristics played a limited role in explaining variation in environmental orientations, while gender was modestly associated with social–personal outcomes, highlighting the importance of instructional design and socially mediated learning conditions in supporting natural sciences education within nontraditional learning environments.