| The Texas Forestry Association (TFA) sponsors the Teachers' Conservation Institute (TCI), an outdoor field based workshop, which uses the forest as a teaching resource for environmental education. The purpose of this study was three fold: First, to characterize the demographics of the participants in TCI, second, to evaluate the effectiveness of the workshop in altering the opinions of participants regarding natural resource management, forest management and environmental education and third, to evaluate the effectiveness of the workshop in altering the participants' knowledge of natural resource management, forest management, and environmental education.; Participants attended one of three sessions of TCI in the summer of 1998. Pre- and post-program evaluations were utilized to collect data from the participants. The pre-program evaluation consisted of Part I; demographic information, Part II; belief and opinion statements of natural resource management, forest management, and environmental education; and Part III, general ecological knowledge questions.; The post-program evaluation consisted of two Parts. Part I pertained to the expectations, beliefs and opinion statements of regarding TCI, and Part II inquired about general ecological knowledge and vocabulary questions.; Results indicated that the participants' opinions on Natural Resource Management, Forest Management and Environmental Education changed over time from moderately pro-management to strongly pro-management. Participants' statistically ranked the Teachers' Conservation Institute 4.50 to 5.00 on a five-point scale, with 5 indicative of strong support for the Institute. |
