Development of an environmental education program using place-based outdoor learning for elementary school children in Malaysia: a pilot project in Johor Bahru

Abstract

This study aims to develop a new environmental education program as part of formal primary education in Malaysia. The program involves various place-based outdoor learning activities such as scientific field measurement. As the first attempt, a pilot project comprising three workshops on neighborhood greening was conducted with about 50 elementary school children in one of the typical neighborhoods in the city of Johor Bahru, Malaysia, followed by a tree-planting program. Almost all the children continued to participate in all the workshops with very high satisfaction levels as well as high levels of understanding. The improvements were seen in most of the items on children's environmental interests, activities and intentions. It was implied that the place-based outdoor learning activities including the scientific measurement improved their interests particularly in terms of the invisible environmental issues.