Effect of Earth Citizenship Education on Elementary School Students

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of Earth Citizenship Education by a non-profit corporation on sixth-grade students in elementary school. To this end, from April to July 2023, education and campaigns were conducted, targeting one class of sixth graders at N Elementary School in Seoul, selected for the Global Citizenship Education Program encompassing food education, environmental education, and social education. First, Food education covered three topics and a campaign promoting the right food practices. These include ‘nutrition balance and taste education,’ ‘food labeling education’, and ‘animal welfare education’. Similarly, environmental education covered three themes and school clean-up campaigns: ‘proper cleaning class,’ ‘blue ocean class’, and ‘virus and earth environment class’. Finally, social education focused on two topics: ‘cognitive domain and media literacy’, and ‘project design,’ emphasizing empathy education for fostering coexistence. Over ten weeks, professional instructors visited the school for 80 to 90 minutes each week to deliver experiential face-to-face lectures and organize practical missions. To assess the effect of Earth Citizenship Education, students' knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral aspects related to each topic were surveyed before and after the education. The first survey, aimed at capturing immediate effects, was conducted one week after the education, while the second survey was administered a month later to confirm the continuity of behavioral changes. The collected data underwent statistical analysis using SPSS 21.0. Results reveal that elementary school students’ scores across knowledge, attitude, and behavioral areas improved by 13.2, 23.0, and 10.0 points, respectively, post 1st and 45.1 post 2nd. The average scores stood at 86.4, 77.4, and 59.4 points post 1st and 94.5 points post 2nd. Environmental education recorded improvements of 9.6, 13.3, and 5.9 points post 1st, and 37.6 points post 2nd, with average scores of 76.2, 79.2, and 64.4 points post 1st, and 96.1 points post 2nd. In addition, social education showed improvements of 9.0, 2.7, and 6.1 points post 1st and 40.0 points post 2nd, with average scores of 84.0, 75.5, and 47.8 points post 1st and 81.7 points post 2nd. Elementary school students expressed high satisfaction with Earth Citizenship Education, especially the student-centered learning consisting of direct activities and experiences, with average scores of 84.9 and 75.2 points for food education, 83.0 and 75.6 points for environmental education, and 80.0 and 75.0 points for social education. However, there remains room for improvement in the recommendation scores. In conclusion, the study confirms that Earth Citizenship Education provided by the local community effectively changed elementary school students’ knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. In addition, it was confirmed that the sustained effect on behavioral change could be attributed to teacher intervention aligned with the school curriculum, such as subject-related campaigns, providing review materials, and activities in Practical Arts subjects. Consequently, continuous post-education intervention can effectively bring about changes in knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors through proper food, environment, and social practices in daily life. Furthermore, this study can potentially contribute to developing a customized educational model in Practical Arts subjects through collaborations between local communities and schools.