Instilling a Sense of Place and Committment to Conservation through a Habitat Monitoring Internship
(Book - Regular Print)

ProQuest Document ID: 1400789247

Advisor: Elizabeth Garrison

Thesis (M.A.) -- Prescott College, 2013

This thesis seeks to understand the impacts and outcomes of a six-week wildlife habitat monitoring internship on the 12 adolescent students who participated. The opportunity for this project sprung from my involvement in the design and implementation of this internship at Walking Mountains Science Center in Avon, Colorado. The interns spent six-weeks performing field data collection for the United States Forest Service, learning about ecology, botany, and environmental ethics, and earning college credit for their work. Inductive analysis was used to analyze data from a variety of sources. The results indicated that this internship was an effective model for instilling a sense of place, commitment to conservation, and increased sense of self-efficacy among its participants. Hands-on field research of this type has potential to increase sense of place, commitment to conservation, and a sense of self-efficacy, thereby augmenting a student's engagement in science, and improving performance in advanced science courses.