Onderwerp scriptie
Seeing the world through the eyes of others: is travel tourism an effective approach to sustainability communication and learning? (case study)
Field trips are an established component of the repertoire of sustainability educators. Learning from observing, engaging with and experiencing real-world examples of lived sustainability has shown to be encouraging, motivating, and effective in stimulating continued learning processes. Sustainability Adventure (http://forum-via.org/portfolio-item/sustainability-adventure) is a program that has taken this approach to a next level. It has developed an interactive travel reporter game in which students can discover sustainable visions in action all around the world. Volunteer reporters travel to places and share those stories with school classes far away. Those participating classes are not just passive recipients, but virtually accompany their reporter by doing additional research, posing questions, and interacting with the stories provided. While the program has been operating for a few years now, there has been no evaluation research conducted to study the approach and its impacts on learners.
Goal?
The aim of this thesis proposal is to design and conduct an evaluative case study of the Sustainability Adventure as a form a mediated real-world learning in sustainability education.
How?
The student working on this thesis will familiarize himself or herself with the program by reviewing materials and interviewing stakeholders. The main part then is to design and conduct an evaluative case study that includes data collection and analysis to shed light on the effects of the program on learners.
What’s in it for you?
You will partner with and be supported by the Sustainability Adventure team and get to know an innovative educational approach. You will also learn to conduct an evaluation project of a real-world program, which is an important skillset in a number of professional fields.
Who?
You have an interest in sustainability education and have solid previous experience with qualitative and/or quantitative research.
What else?
Depending on the quality of the final work, the thesis could be further developed into a scientific paper submission to an academic journal.