Below is the text from the Executive Summary from this report. The complete report can be downloaded from the bottom of this page.
Stages of Green:
A Summary Evaluation of
the Boston Schools Environmental Initiative, 2005-2009
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Boston Schools Environmental Initiative (BSEI) program worked with several Boston Public schools to foster ìhands-on, minds-onî science and environmental awareness. The overall finding from this evaluation, conducted over four academic years, was that the longer a school participated in the BSEI program, the more the culture and operations of the school changed in the direction of the intended BSEI outcomes.
BSEI is a program of Mass Audubonís Boston Nature Center (BNC), which places a teacher naturalist part time in each school, and provides ongoing professional development and project coordination for BSEI schools. The goal of the program is to move through a model-mentor-coach cycle over the course of a four-year period. The teacher naturalist and school educators move back and forth between these roles throughout this four-year period as the model becomes more fully integrated into educator practice and school culture. In the last year of BNCís formal involvement with the school, the program emphasizes leadership and action from within the school.
The notion of change happening in stages and cycles was central to the design and implementation of this program and the evaluation. The fluidity of the change process represented in BSEIís model-mentor-coach cycle is consistent with the Stages of Change model derived from psychological research on intentional behavior change (Prochaska, DiClemente, and Norcross, 1992; Doppelt, 2009). This psychological model describes how people change their patterns of behavior, and suggests strategies to help people change. In sum, change happens in increments, and reversion to prior stages and
temporary stretching to subsequent stages is normal and to be expected. Thus, success might be more accurately and usefully measured in terms of progression along a continuum of stages.
In order to facilitate this progression, BNC adapted the BSEI program to be optimally useful and successful at each of the participant schools. The teacher naturalists engaged in a wide range of activities at each school, depending on the schoolís needs, and this adaptability of the program was key to its success.
Summary of Key Evaluation Findings
When examining data across several BSEI sites over a number of years, an overall pattern emerged: participating schools progressed through four sequential phases that were distinct but overlapping. This developmental maturation seemed clearly driven by the presence of the BSEI program and roughly aligns with the Stages of Change model described previously. These phases, ìStart-up,î ìProgram Expansion,î ìWrap-up,î and ìFollow-upî are described in more detail below, with report headings color-coded for easier recognition.
Start-up Phase
The beginning phase of BSEI implementation was mostly about laying the groundwork for future development. The success of this start-up phase was dependent upon a combination of the prior relationship with BNC and the following indicators:
- Working on relationships between BSEI and school staff
- Modeling hands-on, minds-on science in the classroom
- Emerging science focus at the school
- Early stages of student scientific skills and conservation awareness
- Initiating plans to implement a school wide conservation project
Program Expansion Phase
As time went on, schools began to make progress with BSEI program operations and logic model outcomes. Schools in this phase tended to show evidence of exciting but somewhat isolated exemplar projects. Other indicators of this phase included:
- Expanding the role and reach of the teacher naturalist
- Increasing focus on science at the school
- School wide conservation project galvanized support for BSEI
- Hands-on, minds-on science impacted student scientific thinking and conservation awareness
Wrap-up Phase
The central challenge and opportunity that played out during the final years of the BSEI program was the question of the role of science in the future identity of the school. Indicators of this phase included:
- Integrated science focus, with educators teaching science in the classroom
- Student scientific thinking and conservation awareness/behavior deepened
- Expansion of school wide conservation and science projects/events
- Uncertainty and anxiety around the sustainability of BSEI goals without BNC support
Follow-up Phase
By the time the school completed the BSEI program, it was very far along the Stages of Change continuum. The level and type of ongoing commitment to science revealed the extent to which it had become part of the core fabric of the school. Indicators included:
- Highly collaborative school climate
- Drive toward coherent curriculum focused on thematic integration related to environment
- Thematic integration impact student outcomes
- Essential components of BNC support identified: naturalist support, planning time, and funding
- Continued concern about sustainability of program goals without BNC support
Evaluation Methods
External evaluators from PEER Associates, Inc. conducted evaluations with a select subset of BSEI schools each year from fall of 2005 to spring of 2009. The primary goals of the evaluations were to: 1) inform program improvement during the program; and 2) provide data from various sites in order to document the range of outcomes from baseline to longer term. Data was collected from five different schools over the course of four academic years, including interviews with over 100 educators, 13 family members, and seven students, and 78 educator surveys. In addition, BNC staff filled out project summaries. Finally, logic model outcomes were rated in terms of the Stage of Change categories by BNC staff and by evaluators for each school in every year that the school was evaluated (not every school was evaluated every year).
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