Environmental education through documentaries: Assessing learning outcomes of a general environmental studies course

Abstract

The use of film as supplementary materials in the classroom has become common for higher education teachers of environmental studies. It is, however, rare that film is incorporated as the primary instructional medium. This paper reports a case study on a documentary film-based environmental studies course which sought to engage students in exploring and reflecting on a wide range of locally significant environment issues. While film is the focus of the course, post-film reflective discussion is an integral part in order to help students identify and clarity their thoughts and ideas. A pre and post survey and post-instruction interviews were carried out with two cohorts of university students for the purpose of evaluating this course. The results suggest that, using documentaries to repeatedly expose students to real issues, the course proved to be beneficial to developing students' perspective-taking and critical thinking abilities and sense of relevance, which collectively leads to a more pro-environmental disposition.