Student Survey 2 - Environment
Question 1: What do you think of our classroom environment?
For this question I gave students a chance to consider if they were the teacher and got to design the classroom themselves would this be the type of classroom they would design?
12 students replied that they liked the classroom a lot and they would not make serious changes.
7 students replied that they thought it was a great space but had some ideas for improvement.
1 student replied that they neither liked nor disliked it but would prefer it to be a little more simplified.
Question 2: How could we improve the classroom?
I asked students if they were in charge of decorating or designing our classroom, what else could we bring in to make our classroom cooler, more comfortable, or a better environment. I wanted to test and see if students were more interested in material things like toys and games or if they thought that natural objects were important to the aesthetic of our environment. To my surprise, I didn't have a single student reply with toys or games. Every student thought that having more items from nature would help to improve the classroom. I had also recently added some Halloween and fall decorations and they nearly all commented on how having a whole room of Halloween decorations would be an improvement. Here are some of the student replies:
Decorations, flowers, pets, trees, plants, more books, leaves, stars, less clutter with things on the walls, a more comfortable carpet, butterflies, more pictures of my Dog, seasonal decorations, make crafts and artwork out of things from nature, animals, pictures of the ocean or bodies of water
Question 3: Would you like to see more items or things from nature inside the classroom?
14 students replied that they would like to see more nature inside
4 students replied maybe. But had some concerns about what types of nature we could realistically bring in. They were concerned about removing nature to bring it in for decorations may impact nature in a negative way.
2 students replied no they believed that nature should be left in nature and we should only observe it outside.
Question 4: Do you think it is important to take care of our environment both indoors and outdoors?
Every student in the class said yes with conviction. There was no doubt in their minds that taking care of our environment was a very important thing to do. Here are the reasons they came up with for why we should take care of our environment:
We won’t have a world to live in, won’t have a nice classroom, things need to be able to keep growing, we have to live in it, we should make it a special place, a messy world would not be fun to live in, we can't destroy the world because we can’t do it over again, we can’t use things that are destroyed, for safety reasons, we don’t want to live somewhere that hasn’t been taken care of, we need trees to live because of oxygen.
Question 5: How can we protect the environment? What steps can you take to help keep our planet safe?
Students all generally had a good understanding of the policies that we have put in place to protect our natural environment and at school. Students didn't have a great understanding yet of how recycled items or composting natural materials made a difference, but they did know that it was important to do those things because it helps protect the Earth. Some students had a deeper understanding of protecting nature, but overall every student had some great ideas of the things we can do as a society to help protect the environment. This was a great survey to run with my students to know how much I needed to teach them about environmental stewardship. I was relieved to know that they all had a great baseline of understanding and I would be able to expand their understanding rather than teaching them the basics! Here are some of the students responses to this question.
We can keep water clean, don’t litter, reuse items, we should protect animals and plants by not cutting trees down or hunting unnecessarily, by playing gently with living things, we can help by planting things, we should clean up after ourselves, recycling and composting, picking up garbage, we can keep protecting things that are alive, we should practice leaving nature in nature and appreciating it by looking only, we should take care of our materials so we are not wasteful.
For this question I gave students a chance to consider if they were the teacher and got to design the classroom themselves would this be the type of classroom they would design?
12 students replied that they liked the classroom a lot and they would not make serious changes.
7 students replied that they thought it was a great space but had some ideas for improvement.
1 student replied that they neither liked nor disliked it but would prefer it to be a little more simplified.
Question 2: How could we improve the classroom?
I asked students if they were in charge of decorating or designing our classroom, what else could we bring in to make our classroom cooler, more comfortable, or a better environment. I wanted to test and see if students were more interested in material things like toys and games or if they thought that natural objects were important to the aesthetic of our environment. To my surprise, I didn't have a single student reply with toys or games. Every student thought that having more items from nature would help to improve the classroom. I had also recently added some Halloween and fall decorations and they nearly all commented on how having a whole room of Halloween decorations would be an improvement. Here are some of the student replies:
Decorations, flowers, pets, trees, plants, more books, leaves, stars, less clutter with things on the walls, a more comfortable carpet, butterflies, more pictures of my Dog, seasonal decorations, make crafts and artwork out of things from nature, animals, pictures of the ocean or bodies of water
Question 3: Would you like to see more items or things from nature inside the classroom?
14 students replied that they would like to see more nature inside
4 students replied maybe. But had some concerns about what types of nature we could realistically bring in. They were concerned about removing nature to bring it in for decorations may impact nature in a negative way.
2 students replied no they believed that nature should be left in nature and we should only observe it outside.
Question 4: Do you think it is important to take care of our environment both indoors and outdoors?
Every student in the class said yes with conviction. There was no doubt in their minds that taking care of our environment was a very important thing to do. Here are the reasons they came up with for why we should take care of our environment:
We won’t have a world to live in, won’t have a nice classroom, things need to be able to keep growing, we have to live in it, we should make it a special place, a messy world would not be fun to live in, we can't destroy the world because we can’t do it over again, we can’t use things that are destroyed, for safety reasons, we don’t want to live somewhere that hasn’t been taken care of, we need trees to live because of oxygen.
Question 5: How can we protect the environment? What steps can you take to help keep our planet safe?
Students all generally had a good understanding of the policies that we have put in place to protect our natural environment and at school. Students didn't have a great understanding yet of how recycled items or composting natural materials made a difference, but they did know that it was important to do those things because it helps protect the Earth. Some students had a deeper understanding of protecting nature, but overall every student had some great ideas of the things we can do as a society to help protect the environment. This was a great survey to run with my students to know how much I needed to teach them about environmental stewardship. I was relieved to know that they all had a great baseline of understanding and I would be able to expand their understanding rather than teaching them the basics! Here are some of the students responses to this question.
We can keep water clean, don’t litter, reuse items, we should protect animals and plants by not cutting trees down or hunting unnecessarily, by playing gently with living things, we can help by planting things, we should clean up after ourselves, recycling and composting, picking up garbage, we can keep protecting things that are alive, we should practice leaving nature in nature and appreciating it by looking only, we should take care of our materials so we are not wasteful.