The Impact of Environmental Education on Environmental and Renewable Energy Technology Awareness: Empirical Evidence from Colombia

Abstract

This paper empirically investigates to what extent environmental education (EE) at school can explain variation in environmental literacy of 15-year-olds in Colombia, while controlling for several other student- and school-level confounding factors. We use a two-level nested model, where the individual observations are nested within schools. Based on the maximum likelihood estimation method, we estimate a linear mixed model which contains both fixed effects and random effects. Our empirical results only provide weak evidence that environmental education can promote a higher level of environmental awareness. The relationship between environmental education and awareness of renewable energy technologies (RETs) is even weaker. Our findings therefore suggest that environmental education should not be considered a magic bullet in promoting environmental literacy among students. Additionally, we find more reliable predictors for environmental awareness than for awareness of RETs. Overall, the socio-economic status, stronger student science abilities, parent characteristics, and a few school-level characteristics such as quality of education resources and school ownership (public versus private) seem to be decisive factors for varying levels of environmental literacy among students in Colombia.